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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]
Some argue that active voice is more muscular, direct, and succinct, passive voice flabbier, more indirect, and wordier. If you want your words to seem impersonal, indirect, and noncommittal, passive is the choice, but otherwise, active voice is almost invariably likely to prove more effective. [19]
In general, Mandarin used to be best analyzed using middle voice, but Mandarin-speakers can construct a passive voice by using the coverb θΆ« (bèi) and rearranging the usual word order. [17] For example, this sentence using active voice: (Note: the first line is in Traditional Chinese while the second is Simplified Chinese)
This contrasts with the passive voice, where the subject is the recipient of the action, such as in "The fish was eaten by the cat." The use of both active and passive voices in languages enhances versatility in sentence construction, allowing either the semantic agent or patient to assume the syntactic role of the subject. [2]
The passive voice in English may appear to be in the OVS order, but that is not an accurate description. In an active voice sentence like Sam ate the oranges, the grammatical subject, Sam, is the agent and is acting on the patient, the oranges, which are the object of the verb, ate.
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]
Suicidal ideation (suicidal thoughts) exists on a spectrum: passive and active. Experts say the main difference between passive and active suicidal ideation is the intent and plan that accompanies ...
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 '.