Active vs. Passive
1301 English Comp
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Expresses an
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Action
Occurrence
State of Being
Reveal when something occurs
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The present
The past
The future
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Main verbs indicate
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Link subject with
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State of being
Condition
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
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Regular
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Past tense and past participle
Adding –ed or –d
Irregular
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Don’t consistently add –ed or –d
Sing, sang, sung
Cost, cost, cost
Grow, grew, grown
Quick Reference 15.4/pages 316-318
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Combine with main verbs to make verb
phrases.
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Quick Reference 15.5/page 319
Main Auxiliary (helping) verbs
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Be
Do
Have
Quick Reference 15.6-7/pages 320-321
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More than any other part of speech, it is the
verb that determines whether a writer is a
wimp or a wizard.
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Emphasizes the DOER of an action, active
constructions are more direct and dramatic.
Require fewer words than passive
constructions.
Page 333 – S&S HB
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
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When the does is unknown.
When the action is more important than the doer.
(page 334)
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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?
The form of an active verb ending in
 -ing or -ed is known as a participle
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onrushing water
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punishing waves
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shifting mountains of water
twenty-foot splitting tubes
a rocky, waterfall-threaded
scree
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the first wall of sandy,
grumbling white-water
pulverizing force
a swift, swooping,
surefooted ride
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a vicious, ledging wave
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the final, jacking section
a long, tapering, darkening
wall
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the glassy, rumbling, peagreen wall
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a maelstrom of dredging,
midsized waves
the thick, pouring, silverbeaded curtain
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
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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It gets them off the hook.
"mistakes were made" President Reagan
Later when in real trouble - "serious mistakes
were made."
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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.
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 aboutthe jury's role, or the fact that a notorious
slaughterer got the slammer?
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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.
Does,
 get,
 go,
 has,
 put,
 are (technically) dynamic verbs,
They add almost nothing to a sentence.
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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."
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.
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:
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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
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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
Verbs also enter the language through backformation, the process that gave us
 “to rob” from “robber;”
 “to beg” from “beggar”
 “to diagnose” from “diagnosis”
 “to babysit” from “babysitter.”
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.