Active vs. Passive 1301 English Comp. Expresses an Action Occurrence State of Being Reveal when something occurs The present The past

VERBSActive vs. Passive

1301 English Comp

THE VERB

Expresses an Action Occurrence State of Being

Reveal when something occurs The present The past The future

Linking Verbs

Main verbs indicate State of being Condition

Link subject with One or more words that rename or describe

the subject (subject complement). Is like an equal sign between a subject

and its complement. Quick Reference 15.2-15.3/page 312-

313

VerbsPage 315

Regular Past tense and past participle Adding –ed or –d

Irregular Don’t consistently add –ed or –d Sing, sang, sung Cost, cost, cost Grow, grew, grown Quick Reference 15.4/pages 316-318

Auxiliary Verbsi.e.

Helping Verbs

Combine with main verbs to make verb phrases. Quick Reference 15.5/page 319

Main Auxiliary (helping) verbs Be Do Have Quick Reference 15.6-7/pages 320-321

The Verb

More than any other part of speech, it is the verb that determines whether a writer is a wimp or a wizard.

The Active Voice

Emphasizes the DOER of an action, active constructions are more direct and dramatic.

Require fewer words than passive constructions.

Page 333 – S&S HB

The Passive Voice

Another way to tone up prose is to eliminate what’s known as “the passive voice,”

in which the subject of a sentence is being acted upon-by an agent named elsewhere in the sentence or left ambiguous--rather than taking the action directly.

Proper Uses When the does is unknown. When the action is more important than the

doer. (page 334)

IS and ARE

Deleting IS and ARE does not suffice. Don’t replace versions of “to be” with

just any verbs. Be inventive! “She walks through the house” wins

points over “she is inside,” But why “walks” when the choices

include paces, skips, and skedaddles? Why settle for a verb like says when wail,

whisper, and insist are waiting to be heard?

Participle “ing” or “ed”

The form of an active verb ending in -ing or -ed is known as a participle

Examples of Participles

onrushing water

punishing waves

shifting mountains of water twenty-foot splitting tubes

a rocky, waterfall-threaded scree

a long, tapering, darkening wall

the glassy, rumbling, pea-green wall

the first wall of sandy, grumbling white-water pulverizing force

a swift, swooping, surefooted ride

a vicious, ledging wave

the final, jacking section

a maelstrom of dredging, midsized waves

the thick, pouring, silver-beaded curtain

WHAT “IS” IS - AND ISN'T

In speaking and informal writing, We naturally gravitate to “to be” in all its

incarnations-present tense and past, active voice and passive.

A reliance on “to be” is a sure sign of a novice

“IS”

A dependence on IS and its family screams "rough draft”

The best writers, during the many revisions they put every piece through, go back and scrub out every unnecessary IS and ARE.

THAT BAD, BAD “BEING”

A first-cousin sin of IS is BEING.

Nine times out of ten, when BEING appears, it makes for an error; the remaining time, it's probably extraneous.

Use the Active Verb

Almost any sentence can be made active. Take this passive line: The hair dresser was being ogled by the

guy whose hair was being snipped. See how easy it is to straighten out this tangle of attentions:

The guy getting a haircut couldn't take his eyes off his hair dresser.

The Passive Voice

The passive voice often crops up intentionally,

When the writer or speaker wants to blur the relationship between the person committing an action (the "agent") and the action.

Politicians and bureaucrats love the passive voice

It gets them off the hook. "mistakes were made" President Reagan Later when in real trouble - "serious

mistakes were made."

The Great Communicator never did say who made the mistakes or whether his policy was flawed.

Such intentional dodges are harder to make active because the agent (the person who took the action) is AWOL.

HYPERACTIVE EDITING.

The passive voice does exist for a reason. Sometimes its the best way to say

something Headlines - "1-580 killer convicted" is

passive but better than its active rewrite "Jury

convicts 1-580 killer” What do you think? Did the public care

about-the jury's role, or the fact that a notorious slaughterer got the slammer?

Out of Necessity

If you want to keep the focus on a particular subject, you may want to keep that person the subject of the sentence, using the passive voice if necessary to do so.

Miscellaneous Wimps

Does, get, go, has, put, are (technically) dynamic verbs, They add almost nothing to a sentence.

Look out for verbs that convey less action than other words in the sentence,

and avoid them:

Turn "he has a plan to" into "he plans to.” Turn "the team had ten losses" into "the

team lost ten games. Turn "an accident occurred that damaged

my car" into "that teenager bashed my Ferrari.”

Turn "her speech caused me to blush" into "Hearing so many compliments, I blushed."

AIRHEAD ACTION.

Have you ever pondered those verbs that everyone uses but that make no sense?

Revolve around, for example, and its cousin center around usually mark desperate attempts by unimaginative reporters to sound good.

False Limbs

Don't pass over strong single words, such as

break, stop, spoil, kill, In favor of phrases made of a noun or

adjective tacked on to some general-purpose verb:

Possible Verb Phrases

make contact with - use call, fax, or email

exhibit a tendency to - tend to come to an agreement on - agree to cause an investigation to be made with

a view to ascertaining - find out will take steps - will does not see his way to - will not is not in a position to - cannot is prepared to inform you - will tell you

Rather than to access - try to view to author; to write to finalize; to finish to impact; to touch to input; to enter to interface; to talk to prioritize; to reorganize to obsolete; to outpace or to

supersede

IF THE VERB DOESN'T FIT, YOU MUST ATTRIT

Verbs also enter the language through back-formation, the process that gave us

“to rob” from “robber;” “to beg” from “beggar” “to diagnose” from “diagnosis” “to babysit” from “babysitter.”

Beware of Back-Formations

They can range from the ugly (burgle, from burglar) to the awkward (televise, from television) to the downright dastardly, like enthuse, liaise, and attrit ("our air strike will attrit their armor").

Just because a verb descends from a legitimate noun does not give it a proper pedigree.