Mods, take some time off. This thread’s for hijackin’

[LSLGuy]

One’s attention is directed thusly:

Microsoft Word and everyone else: Stop defaming passive voice

There’s nothing wrong with the passive voice, so please cut it out with broad, generalized writing advice discouraging its use. The passive voice can be very useful. Especially in legal and technical documents, there are many cases in which one might prefer to de-emphasize or not mention the actor at all it might be preferable to de-emphasize or not mention the actor at all. That’s exactly why the passive voice exists. Just yesterday a colleague who drafted a text intended to explain a complex …