Traditional grammarians consider passive voice to be an erroneous way to express one’s ideas.
Passive voice is considered as an erroneous way to express one’s ideas (by whom?)
These two sentences are examples of active and passive voice and express the same thought. In other words, the meaning conveyed by both the sentences is the same, but the information shared varies and one of the sentences is more appealing to the reader than the other.
In both the sentences, the focus is on the underlined words that produce two entirely opposite focus points. In the first sentence your focus is on ‘traditional grammarians’, while in the second you are focusing on ‘passive voice’.
Active voice
The first sentence in the beginning of this article is more informative and more appealing. That sentence is ACTIVE voice. The underlined words indicate the subject of the sentence. Subject does an action in active voice. He or she or it is directly doing an action. You cannot write active voice without mentioning who is performing the action.
Active voice is more direct, more casual and less verbose. We tend to speak in active voice in day to day life.
I am learning English.
She stole the jewels.
Passive Voice
English is being learnt (by me).
The jewels were stolen (by her).
In passive voice the subject simply receives the action from some obscure person or thing. You can simply leave out the doer of the action from a passive voice sentence without changing the meaning.
This is the major difference between active and passive voice.
Passive voice and the advantage of obscurity
Passive voice has its own advantages. Politicians, scientists, businessmen and novelists are fond of passive voice.
It is easy to fool people and escape blaming one particular person by saying, ‘Decisions were made and they went wrong’ rather than saying, ‘Mr. So and so made the decision and it went wrong’ OR ‘I made the decision and it went wrong’.
A novelist might want to create suspense by shifting our focus from the murderer by writing, ‘The girl was killed’ rather than writing, ‘someone killed the girl’. The novelist wants your focus on the girl who is killed and not on the ‘someone’ who killed her. It might spoil the plot.
For reports it sounds good to see, ‘He was promoted for his excellent performance’ rather than saying ‘the MD promoted him…’ OR ‘the company promoted him…’ The focus shifts unnecessarily.
Tips to identify and remember active and passive voice
- Circle the subject of the sentence. If the subject is not doing the action and is simply receiving an action from someone or something, then the sentence is passive.
- Passive voice is characterised by
- Use of past participle: Stolen, eaten, learnt, etc.
- Adding a ‘by so–and–so’ in the end of the sentence to indicate the doer of the action.
- Containing words like is being/are being/had been/was being/has been/were being/is/are/was/were/being.
- If you do not want to point out the person who did an action, use passive voice. If you want to project something that someone did, use active voice.
Remember that there is nothing wrong with passive voice and it is not something to get rid of from your vocabulary. In active voice your ideas sound more firm and definitely more determined. Yet, you should use passive voice judiciously, like salt, as and when required.
Further reading:
A light hearted piece on grammar of active and passive voice: ‘50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice’ http://chronicle.com/article/50-Years-of-Stupid-Grammar/25497
Related useful links:
English Language classes in India
English Language classes in Bangalore
English Language classes in Mumbai
English Language classes in Delhi
| Improve English Grammar – Usage of ‘Who’ and ‘Whom’ |
