tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post1395331257177928539..comments2024-01-22T18:22:29.391-08:00Comments on hedera's corner: Hiding Behind the Passivehederahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-11947287159964182542007-03-26T18:27:00.000-07:002007-03-26T18:27:00.000-07:00boggart,I also experienced some of that. And I ha...boggart,<BR/><BR/>I also experienced some of that. And I had my battles at times with the formal third person, the value of which I do understand, but there were times the first person just made more sense, probably because I was fed up with the aura of pretentiousness I too often found myself surrounded by (ooh, I love ending with preposition - thank you, Winston Churchill, even if you were a racist pig regarding Middle Easterners)<BR/><BR/>Basically I'm with hedera: clean, active prose that says what needs to be said as clearly as possible. One of my favorite comments on the issue of writing clear prose is that any clear idea can be expressed clearly. If one cannot express it clearly, it probably isn't a clear idea.<BR/><BR/>I also favor some form of torture for the use of the passive voice unless the actor really is unknown - gentle torture, of course, for basically decent souls trapped in that awful habit.<BR/><BR/>Anonymous DavidAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-25227542349924477472007-03-18T17:41:00.000-07:002007-03-18T17:41:00.000-07:00It would be an interesting subject for a dissertat...It would be an interesting subject for a dissertation, wouldn't it? Why we use the passive so much, and when we decided to do that. Certainly when everything you read in your profession is written in the passive, the urge to be like everyone else and write in the passive becomes overwhelming. I know a guy at work whom I truly believe is not capable of producing a simple declarative sentence in the active voice. He thinks in the passive. (He's a nice guy, too; I like him.) <BR/><BR/>I personally have to fight constantly to keep the documents I write at work in the active voice; but then, I gave up on being "like everybody else" years ago, and I respect clean readable prose. Nothing written in the passive is ever clean or readable.<BR/><BR/>I hadn't thought about the Teflon overcoat; maybe it's no more than that.hederahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01696592301686568456noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-64236652054565086382007-03-18T11:21:00.000-07:002007-03-18T11:21:00.000-07:00I think, (me, myself, and I that is), academics of...I think, (me, myself, and I that is), academics often use passive voice because they have read so much academic writing in the passive voice. Okay, that is a we did it because they did it, and they did it because we did it closed loop argument. <BR/><BR/>Eons ago, when I was a tad more innocent than I am at present, it appeared to me that to earn kudos from my instructors it was necessary to write “esoterically.” That is, I wrote in the passive voice as if standing back and observing whatever the topic was from an “educated and intellectual” distance. Yeah, I was a young idiot, but it worked. <BR/><BR/>Then, when I went for a graduate degree, the world of academic writing was undergoing a change. I got my first paper back with the gentle instruction to “rewrite in the active voice and re-submit.” For years, I spent time Sherlock Holmesing my writing. Breaking a once successful habit is difficult. I still lapse into that unattached, stand back written attitude if I’m not careful. Trying to teach other people to write clearly somewhat tends to keep my writing in focus. <BR/><BR/>I have also noticed, my colleagues tend to lapse into passive voice depending on the importance of the item they are writing. I was an editor for our recent accreditation report, which goes to show no good deed goes unpunished. Anyway, folks that I knew usually wrote in the active voice, lapsed into pontificated passive voice in many committee reports. This tends to reinforce my thinking, that passive voice somehow makes what is written sound important to the writer. <BR/><BR/>I now wonder, was there a period where passive voice indicated the writer was intelligent and educated? During this time was active voice writing used for more immediate, mundane communication? However, I agree that passive voice can do a great job of indicating the writer is not responsible for the topic, the plot, or the results of the event. The writer is merely an observer off at the side, a reporter invoking the sacred law of, “Don’t kill the messenger.” It is the ultimate teflon raincoat.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20417751.post-26413343727697403992007-03-18T09:20:00.000-07:002007-03-18T09:20:00.000-07:00Academic administrators, including department chai...Academic administrators, including department chairs, do it for the same reason as businessmen and the politicians who [sadly] win far too many electionsAnonymousnoreply@blogger.com