It is reported at the Language Log that today,
27 April, has been declared The
Day of the Passive Voice by Shaun’s blog, an idea considered by your
humble blogging hedgehog to be finely wrought. Readers and the general public
are encouraged to celebrate the versatility and creative potential of the
passive voice by incorporating it into their writings on this day, especially
given the way in which it is so frequently denigrated, falsely and ignorantly,
by people who have been told that if it is excluded from their work, it will
be enlivened and better understood by their readers.
That the passive voice is greatly misunderstood, and often
misidentified, by its critics, is exemplified beautifully by the comments to
the original article at Shaun’s blog in most of which a tremendous confusion
about how the passive voice is constructed and what it is understood to mean
can be easily observed by anyone who is not blinded by the deluge of nonsense
spouted by self-appointed stylists.
The articles, and the challenge contained within them, and
this post, are commended to the interest and ingenuity of such readers as might
be inspired by them.
4 comments:
your post was considered by this reader to have been well executed.
The commenter is sincerely thanked by the blogger.
Indeed a fine idea in a comment minus any verb whatseover.
Thanks in a comment without even adjectives ;-))
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