Bore ‘em to tears with passive voice

Today’s column topic was suggested by a writer who is published in the Glendale News-Press and whose books are loved far and wide. The topic: passive sentence structure. The example: the brain-numbingly bad first sentence of this column.

You don’t have to know what passive construction is to be annoyed by it. In most cases, it just comes off as terrible writing. But knowing the difference between the active voice and the passive voice can make you a better communicator overnight. So it’s worth taking a moment to learn, even though that means resisting the lure of that sexy city council story you were about to finish reading when this column’s snappy opener caught your attention.

Compare the first sentence to this one: A writer for the Glendale News- Press who is also author of some well-loved books suggested today’s topic.

The difference? You’re still awake. The reason? Active sentence structure.

Let’s examine an even simpler pair. Today’s topic was suggested by Carolyn Howard-Johnson. Carolyn Howard- Johnson suggested today’s topic.

The first one is passive. The second one is active. A passive sentence is what you get when the subject of the sentence doesn’t perform the action of the verb. In the sentence, “‘The Frugal Book Promoter’ was written by Carolyn Howard-Johnson,” the real action of the sentence is writing. Howard-Johnson did the writing, but the book is the subject of the sentence.

Flip that sentence on its head into active form and you get, “Carolyn Howard-Johnson wrote ‘The Frugal Book Promoter.’” That is, hands down, a much better sentence.

If your attention span is too short to absorb gobbledygook explanations with words like “subject,” “object” and “verb,” here’s a shortcut. Passive sentences are structured, “The blank was blanked by the blank.” Of course, it can be present or future too: “The blank is blanked by the blank,” or, “The blank will be blanked by the blank.” The “was” and the “by” are your tip-offs. And if your attention span is too short to remember this column five minutes from now, I suggest filling in some of those blanks with memorable terms like “Lewinsky.”

Sometimes passive sentences don’t contain the last part, the “by blank.” “The bone was buried by the dog” is clearly a passive sentence. But so is, “The bone was buried,” even though this one doesn’t mention the dog -- the performer of the action -- at all.

But don’t be fooled: Not every sentence with a “was” or an “is” is passive. Here, from language scholar Bryan Garner, is an excellent caveat made all the more fun by the fact that it includes the word “flabby.”

“Many writers talk about the passive voice without knowing exactly what it is. In fact, many think that any BE-verb signals passive voice, as in: ‘The quotation is applicable to this point.’ But that sentence is actually in the active voice -- even though it’s badly in need of editing. Most professional editors would change ‘is applicable’ to ‘applies,’ but they wouldn’t call it ‘passive’ because it’s not. It’s just a flabby ‘be’-verb.”

Passive sentences aren’t incorrect. They’re just more cumbersome and much less engaging. But every once in a while, they’re the best choice. “The president was reelected by a landslide” is passive. But the only way to make it active is to include the unnamed subject, “the voters”: “The voters reelected the president by a landslide.”

If you make that change, it changes your meaning because now you’re emphasizing voters when you really wanted to emphasize the president. And besides, if you emphasize the voters too much, they’ll start getting all full of themselves and start to wonder whether their president has misunderestimated them.

* JUNE CASAGRANDE is a freelance writer. She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.

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