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Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? )
Subject:Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? ) From:"Michael West" <mbwest -at- bigpond -dot- com> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- raycomm -dot- com> Date:Thu, 21 Dec 2000 02:55:43 +1100
Dick Margulis wrote wise words, concluding with:
> That requires, perhaps, that people actually
> learn the vocabulary needed to discuss
> grammatical questions.
>
> Just my .02
Worth more at today's prices. Dick Margulis has identified
the problem. In my first editing/team leader stint I spent a
difficult editing session showing a young writer all the places
where his use of passive voice had hidden the user's role
in the action:
"This must be entered."
"This should be processed"
"This will be generated."
"This can be updated."
Page after page, paragraph after paragraph.
"Too much passive voice!" I objected. The writer, a bright but
(to my mind) under-educated young man finally said, in exasperation:
"So how would you make it more agressive?"
I suppose it is easy, especially in America, to grow up thinking
that the opposite of passive is agressive. But I was astonished
to realize that English as I learned it just isn't taught any more.
So the problem is: must editors also be English teachers? Or
have we the right to assume a basic understanding of the
rudiments of grammar and syntax?
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