Bravo, Martha! I agree totally!
<And we use both the 'big Kolln' and the "little Kolln" at UMUC, so at
least our grammar students know this about passive!>
Linda
-----------------------------------------------------
Linda Di Desidero, Ph.D.
Associate Professor
Assistant Academic Director of Writing
Communication, Arts, and Humanities
University of Maryland University College
3501 University Boulevard East
Adelphi, MD 20783-8083
(240) 582-2830
(240) 582-2993 (fax)
-----Original Message-----
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Martha Kolln
Sent: Sunday, March 09, 2008 5:17 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: past perfect--a final note
Just one comment, Linda.
I tell students (and teachers) that if a passive sentence seems weak or
out of place in a particular context, the problem is not that it's in
the passive voice: The problem is nearly always that the sentence has an
ineffective topic and/or focus. The passive allows us put a particular
noun phrase or nominal in subject--i.e., topic--position.
The "pass" marginal comment ought never to be used--even for an awkward
or ineffective passive: The comment ought to focus on the real problem.
Martha
>Interesting thread! A couple of quick comments in response to Craig and
>Nancy re:
>
>" ..the passive does tend to make writing impersonal. That is one
>reason, though, that it shows up so much in scientific discourse. It
>doesn't matter who heated the mixture for seven minutes at four hundred
>degrees, just that it was done and can be replicated. (Notice the
>paasives at the end of the last sentence.) Impersonal is not always
>good, not always bad, but something we can benefit from noticing."
>
>
>1. Passive does not always make writing impersonal. For example, if I
>write: "I was delighted by your post," I think that I am writing
>something MORE personal than "Your post delighted me." The difference,
>of course, is where I want to place focus, on the effect or cause (or
>beginning or endpoint) of the event: on my becoming delighted OR on
>your post causing me to become delighted.
>
>2. Scientific writing has become more and more 'impersonal' over the
>years. Earlier examples of scientific discourse make frequent use of
>the first person and are much more narrative in nature than the
>scientific language of today.
>
>3. In business writing, it is often very important to use passive and
>other strategies in order to deny or obfuscate responsibility, lest the
>business make itself liable.
>
>4. When I deal with passive in the classroom, I find it more effective
>to talk about it in terms of its semantics, particularly in terms of
>agency and causality, rather than in terms of its syntactic structure
>(which is what students have heard for years and which some of them
>have never quite understood).
>
>Good discussion--
>"another" Linda
>
>Linda Di Desidero, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor
>Assistant Academic Director of Writing
>University of Maryland University College
>3501 University Boulevard, East
>Adelphi, MD 20783
>
>________________________________
>
>From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar on behalf of Craig
>Hancock
>Sent: Sat 3/8/2008 9:42 AM
>To: [log in to unmask]
>Subject: Re: past perfect--a final note
>
>
>
>Nancy,
> I like the last part of your post the best. You're right; the
>passive does tend to make writing impersonal. That is one reason,
>though, that it shows up so much in scientific discourse. It doesn't
>matter who heated the mixture for seven minutes at four hundred
>degrees, just that it was done and can be replicated. (Notice the
>paasives at the end of the last sentence.) Impersonal is not always
>good, not always bad, but something we can benefit from noticing.
> I'm not as happy with the idea of "complete picture" because it
>assumes that each and every sentence is a complete and separate
>statement, not tied to discourse context or situation. If someone asks
>"how are you doing with preparations for the party," you might very
>well say "the cake is baked, but we need to pick up the drinks." The
>baker of the cake may be already known or irrelevant.
> There are functional approaches to language that are highly
systematic.
>I think we need a comprehensive understanding of language before we
>give out prescriptive rules (the old "first, do no harm" maxim.) I have
>said on list many times that I feel a disinterested, primarily
>descriptive linguistics cannot solve the problem. Because people want
>advice on using language, they turn to the handbooks. It's hard to
>blame people for doing that when they don't have a practical
>alternative.
> Linda points out that "it"and "there" are often extra words, but
>they are also highly functional ways to extrapose a subject into focal
>prominence. "It is easy to love you." "There's more than one way to
>skin a cat." Linda wants to help, but she is figuring it out for
>herself on the basis of her own thoughtful understanding. It's a
>daunting task.
> It's not a matter of finding practical ways to use a formal
>understanding, but of recognizing that function is already built in.
>We need to look at how language works. Since effectiveness is context
>specific, we need to look at ways in which language is sensitive to
>context. And by "sensitive to context", I don't mean just dialect and
>social register, but interaction and the construction of shared
>meaning.
>
>Craig
>
>> Like you, Linda, I work with a lot of people in the business
>> community (as well as in the legal and judicial field). They want to
>> know why their MSWord programs put green squiggly lines under every
>> instance of the passive voice. They do not know (1) what the passive
>> voice is or (2) why they are being advised to revise it.
>>
>> Here is what I tell them:
>>
>> First, I define the passive voice as a sentence in which the subject
>> of an active verb is also the recipient of that action.
>>
>> Second, I tell them that it is perfectly fine to use the passive
>> voice (which usually launches a rant about all the other ways that
>> MS Word misleads writers about "problems" in their writing).
>>
>> Third, I tell them that in many cases it is better to write in the
>> active voice because passive voice sentences frequently fail to give
>> the reader a complete picture. If I read "The cake was baked," the
>> picture in my mind is fuzzy because there is no agent for that
>> action. Good writing seeks to elicit a picture in the reader's mind
>> that matches the picture the writer is trying to convey, and passive
>> voice sentences often relay fuzzier pictures than active voice
>> sentences--not always, but often, and for the writer who is getting
>> a green squiggly line under nearly every verb in a document, this
point is worth considering.
>>
>> Finally, I point out that many business writers use the passive
>> voice to avoid using first-person pronouns--something they were
>> taught to do back when the paradigm for businesseses was to maintain
>> professional distance from the reader. They will write, for example,
>> "Your request has been deinied" or "Your cooperation is appreciated"
>> to avoid saying 'We have denied your request" or "We appreciate your
>> cooperation." It strikes me that sentences such as these last two
>> active voice sentences are more personal (while still being
>> professional), while the first two passive
> > voice constructions seem more institutional and impersonal.
>>
>> Ed and Craig, do these points reflect a functional approach to
>> language or a group (or personal!) prejudice?
>>
>> Nancy
>>
>>
>>
>> ---- Linda Comerford <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> In my business writing and grammar workshops, I strongly suggest
>>> avoiding passive voice when a sentence contains all the components
>>> of an active sentence. Those are normally the ones ending in a
>>> "by" prepositional phrase. Since people in the business world are
>>> so darn wordy (they tell me it's a habit from trying to fill those
>>> 500-word theme requirements), I offer them the challenge of
>>> looking to save 50 cents a word for every unnecessary one they
>>> use.
>>>
>>> So they'd save a dollar by changing the following passive sentence
>>> to an active one:
>>>
>>> Passive: The proposal was proofread by the partner.
>>> Active; The partner proofread the proposal.
>>>
>>> To find such passives, I have them use the Control F ("F" stands
>>> for
>>> "Find")
>>> feature in Microsoft Word to find the word "by." They prefer that
>>> to having their grammar checkers simply indicating "Passive"
>>> without always offering the active version.
>>>
>>> By the way, the Control F technique works for finding any words
>>> students use too repetitiously. Many struggle with using "that"
>>> unnecessarily.
>>> Also,
>>> one of my pet peeves is expletives, so I have my participants
>>> search for
> >> "It" and "There" to identify and then eliminate them.
>>>
>>> I hope these tips help all of you too.
>>>
>>> Linda
>>>
>>> Linda Comerford
>>> Comerford Consulting
>>> 317.786.6404
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>> www.comerfordconsulting.com <http://www.comerfordconsulting.com/>
>>>
>>>
>>> _____
>>>
>>> From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar
>>> [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Edgar Schuster
>>> Sent: Friday, March 07, 2008 2:05 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: past perfect--a final note
>>>
>>>
>>> Craig may well be right about Orwell's sentiments; however, Orwell
>>> himself near the end of his essay offers a set of six "rules" (the
>>> word is his).
>>> His fourth rule is "Never use the passive where you can use the
active."
>>> He
>>> doesn't say "where you can use the active" but not the passive.
>>> But he uses passives in four of the first 15 sentences of
>>> "Politics," and it's not at all difficult to substitute actives
>>> for each them.
>>> Hurrah for Craig's "we need a more functional orientation to
>>> language so that choice can be built on something more than
>>> personal or group prejudice."
>>>
>>> Ed Schuster
>>>
>>>
>>> **************
>>> It's Tax Time! Get tips, forms, and advice on AOL Money & Finance.
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