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The active voice is the dominant voice used in English. Many commentators, notably George Orwell in his essay "Politics and the English Language" and Strunk & White in The Elements of Style, have urged minimizing use of the passive voice, but this is almost always based on these commentators' misunderstanding of what the passive voice is. [8]
The usual passive voice is the se pasiva, in which the verb is conjugated in the active voice, but preceded by the se particle: La puerta se abre. La puerta se cierra. Estar is used to form what might be termed a static passive voice (not regarded as a passive voice in traditional Spanish grammar; it describes a state that is the result of an ...
The English passive voice is used less often than the active voice, [3] but frequency varies according to the writer's style and the given field of writing. Contemporary style guides discourage excessive use of the passive voice but generally consider it to be acceptable in certain situations, such as when the patient is the topic of the ...
Mistakes were made" is an expression that is commonly used as a rhetorical device, whereby a speaker acknowledges that a situation was handled poorly or inappropriately but seeks to evade any direct admission or accusation of responsibility by not specifying the person who made the mistakes, nor any specific act that was a mistake.
Swedish has a few passive-voice deponents, although its closely related neighbour languages Danish and Norwegian mostly use active corresponding forms. Indeed, Norwegian shows the opposite trend: like in English, active verbs are sometimes used with a passive or middle sense, such as in boka solgte 1000 eksemplarer ' the book sold 1000 copies '.
Cross-linguistically, participles may have a range of functions apart from adjectival modification. In European and Indian languages, the past participle is used to form the passive voice. In English, participles are also associated with periphrastic verb forms (continuous and perfect) and are widely used in adverbial clauses.
Misconception: The passive voice is incorrect. It is a misconception that the passive voice is always incorrect in English. [21] Some "writing tutors" believe that the passive voice is to be avoided in all cases, [22] but "there are legitimate uses for the passive voice", says Paul Brians. [23]
It is used as a passive participle, with be or get, to form the passive voice: This book was written last year; Trees sometimes get gnawed down by beavers. It is used to form passive participial phrases , which can be used adjectivally or adverbially ( a letter written on his computer ; Beaten to a pulp , he was carried away ) and as ...