If you are interested in a mini-seminar on Passive Voice

[Weird Harold]

We tend to avoid its use in our stories because it dilutes the impact. Even if we do use it, Microsoft Word's Grammar Checker tells us we are using the passive and suggests sometimes ludicrous alternatives.

Og

The best comment I've seen regarding why passive voice should be avoided comes from Purdue University's Online Writing Lab

... overuse of passive voice throughout an essay can make your prose seem flat and uninteresting

Since I have a problem with overuse of passive voice, I use MS Word's grammar checker extensively to search out and destroy as much passive voice as I can.

However, MS Word's Grammar check does NOT highlight all passive voice and sugest changes -- in a work that rates as 4% passive voice sentences in the readability , MS Word generally will turn up ONE, maybe TWO sentences that it will suggest corrections for -- if it even finds that many.

In order to find and remove inappropriate passive voice from my work, I have to check paragraph by paragraph and then sentence by sentence to pin down what MS Word is counting as Passive Voice for the readability statistics.

Passive Voice does have it's place and is sometimes the best way to word something, but I've found that Purdue University's prediction of "Flat and Uninteresting" prose starts to manifest somewhere between 2% and 3% passive voice, as reported by the redability statistics function of MS Word's grammar checker.

 

[gauchecritic]

There's this guy see? He walks into the room. The curtains are drawn. Everything else is real.

Is that passive? Now I'm going to have to scrap the PI (22/7) mystery.

It's too subtle a distinction for me, I don't get it. But then wordcheck only ever points out 1 or 2 passive sentences in 1200. Maybe I just avoid them without knowing it.

Now fragments (no suggestion) are a different thing altogether.

Gauche

 

[Weird Harold]

There's this guy see? He walks into the room. The curtains are drawn. Everything else is real.

Is that passive?

Not according to a quick C&P into MS Word 97 -- there are NO faults with that fragment. At least not with the way I've got my grammar check configured.

 

[BohemianEcstasy]

It's strange to see someone who calls themself a grammarian using "kindof" as one word.

A spectrum describes the kind of grammarians that are out there. Prescriptive means you love the rules, you follow them to the letter, and you almost never break them. Descriptive means you observe what people do without judging them for their mistakes. I try to be more descriptive, if only for the fact that people won't totally discredit me when I make one supposed mistake.

Besides that, I was under the impression that this is a conversational forum, not a formal one. And when you're saying "this is some kind of trick", of course it's two words. But I'd need to see an argument why the conversational "that's kindof mean" is two words.

 

[upfront]

Not according to a quick C&P into MS Word 97 -- there are NO faults with that fragment. At least not with the way I've got my grammar check configured.

Oh God, do people really write this way?

 

[gauchecritic]

But I'd need to see an argument why the conversational "that's kindof mean" is two words.

Mainly because it's not even a contraction (kind'f) it's just missing the space. Now if you'd said "kinda" that would be different.

Gauche

 

[Pure]

Gauche said,

[example] There's this guy see? He walks into the room. The curtains are drawn. Everything else is real. [end]

Is that passive? Now I'm going to have to scrap the PI (22/7) mystery.

It's often far from obvious what 'passive' is, given that, in constructing a sentence, one may choose one of several items for the subject, and select which items go into adverbial phrases.
Further there is the gerundive adjective problem: See the last two examples, below..

While the third sentence above is perhaps passive, it's not entirely clear. Introducing the 'drawer', in a prepositional phrase, would make it so: The curtains were drawn by the guy.

There is a good discussion at this site, with the following examples to show the difficulties:

http://nweb.pct.edu/homepage/staff/evavra/kiss/wb/G05/IM_PassiveVoice.htm


He is suspected of being an accomplice.
They weren't invited.
I'm sure you'll be asked.
Has the starboard pump been repaired?
Someone said he had been seen on the street in Lansing.
They will have been married fifty years next Tuesday.
He's being sent to Camp Stoneman.
The trees are being inspected for aphids.
The leg should have been cut off below the knee.
He may not have been told.

CHALLENGE: Two further, very tricky examples for analysis, from the KISS folks:

He was sleepy and frustrated by the long series of questions.

The tree had been cut down two feet above the ground.
-----

Weird H:
I'd suggest the Word 97 program is probably not a very accurate identifier of passives. Try it on the examples above.

 

[raphy]

And when you're saying "this is some kind of trick", of course it's two words. But I'd need to see an argument why the conversational "that's kindof mean" is two words.

Like gauche said - BOTH usages of that phrase are two words. When you say (conversationally) "That's kindof mean", it's still two words.

The contraction of the phrase 'kind of' is not 'kindof', it's 'kinda'.. That ranks right up there with 'allright' and 'all right'

 

[oggbashan]

There's this guy see? He walks into the room. The curtains are drawn. Everything else is real.

Gauche

I thought that 'drawn' in this context meant sketched with a pencil.

'Everything else is real.' means that the curtains were a pathetic attempt at trompe d'oeil.

Or am I wrong?

Og

 

[gauchecritic]

Must be too English Ogg

Gauche

 

[Weird Harold]

Weird H:
I'd suggest the Word 97 program is probably not a very accurate identifier of passives. Try it on the examples above.

Word 97 says that collection of examples is 75% Passive voice sentences.

Word's grammar check and readability statistics are far from perfect, but I find them to be useful tools -- especially in finding sections where I've gotten passive in my writing.

The trick to using any grammar checker profitably is to understand WHY it finds fault with a particular bit of text -- If it's confused because mistook the proper Noun "Frank" for the adverb "frank" then that particular fault gets marked as an "ignore all."

The default settings in Word's grammar check are configured for business corespondence -- if you customize what it looks for and what it doesn't look for, it can actually be very useful in identifying sections of your work that can use a second look. Just because Word doesn't like a bit of text doesn't mean you have to change it, but it does mean you should probably at least take a second look to make sure that what you wrote says what you thought it does.

 

[BohemianEcstasy]

Like gauche said - BOTH usages of that phrase are two words. When you say (conversationally) "That's kindof mean", it's still two words.

The contraction of the phrase 'kind of' is not 'kindof', it's 'kinda'.. That ranks right up there with 'allright' and 'all right'

Is there honestly a "better" contraction of the phrase kind of? I mean, both are incredibly conversational, and kinda looks worse than kindof. Kindof more closely resembles its original phrase, whereas kinda is more phonetic.

And as far as the "two words" facet of the debate, that wasn't what I was getting at. When kindof/kinda/kind of would be synonymous with somewhat, I usually use kindof. When it's synonymous with type of, I always use kind of. It hinges on the definition in each situation, in my usage.

 

[Pure]

This discussion is kinda silly.

 

[BohemianEcstasy]

True.

 

[oggbashan]

But you can be drawn into it.

Og

 

[Guest]

Would that be with a pencil?

Lou

 

[oggbashan]

Probably. That is what King Edward VIII is supposed to have had, or was it a cigarette?

Og

 

[Guest]

I thought it was a cigar. I wonder if he owned a cake, too.

Lou

 

[oggbashan]

I thought it was a cigar. I wonder if he owned a cake, too.

Lou

He wasn't that big. A cigarillo perhaps.

Og

Cake? I thought that was his wife?

 

[Guest]

He wasn't that big. A cigarillo perhaps.

Og

Cake? I thought that was his wife?

Perhaps, but definitely not a pipe.

Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, "Having his cake and eating it."

Was she actually related to Marge?

Lou

 

[gauchecritic]

Cake? I thought that was his wife?

Maybe you're thinking of 'The Taming of the Shrew'

Gauche

 

[raphy]

Is there honestly a "better" contraction of the phrase kind of? I mean, both are incredibly conversational, and kinda looks worse than kindof. Kindof more closely resembles its original phrase, whereas kinda is more phonetic.

And as far as the "two words" facet of the debate, that wasn't what I was getting at. When kindof/kinda/kind of would be synonymous with somewhat, I usually use kindof. When it's synonymous with type of, I always use kind of. It hinges on the definition in each situation, in my usage.

*chuckles*.. Use what you want. But I know that when I contract 'kind of' in my colloquialism-rich speech, I'm not saying kindof, I'm saying kinda..

To use your explanation:

If something is 'somewhat' large, I don't say 'kind of' large, I say 'kinda' large. And I DO NOT pronounce the 'f' on the end. Hence, for me, 'kindof' is a word that does not exist.

 

[Rhys]

It seems to me that there has been enough demonstration of the use of the passive voice on this thread to show that most of the AH do not need a seminar on its use.

I agree that perhaps my seminar not needed, simply because my pm box is NOT overflowing with interest. However, the problem remains and people still use passive voice when construction their stories. I realise that most of the users of this board understand the need for editing, and so can catch the grammatical mistakes. But there are a few that don't and its really toward the first time submission person that I was offering my idea to. (yikes what a awkard sentence that was!)

As to the time zone problem, if sufficient interest was generated, I have no problem fixing a time and a date for a specific time zone. I am flexible that way.

But, its up to the readers of this thread. If you think this thread is good enough to teach what it is, when to use it and when not to, then thats fine with me.

 

[BohemianEcstasy]

*chuckles*.. Use what you want. But I know that when I contract 'kind of' in my colloquialism-rich speech, I'm not saying kindof, I'm saying kinda..

To use your explanation:

If something is 'somewhat' large, I don't say 'kind of' large, I say 'kinda' large. And I DO NOT pronounce the 'f' on the end. Hence, for me, 'kindof' is a word that does not exist.

That may explain our difference--I do pronounce kinda, kindof, and kind of differently, and kinda isn't a word, for me. I mean, I don't use it, because it seems lazy (lazier than kindof, I guess). But it doesn't really matter, I s'pose.

 

[Guest]

That's not how I spell posse!

Lou