Re: Passive voice and the sticking to of guns

Subject: Re: Passive voice and the sticking to of guns
From: Stan Brown <stbrown -at- NACS -dot- NET>
Date: Tue, 2 Apr 1996 20:41:57 -0100

Quoth Jack Shaw <jsh -at- SOFTWARE-AG -dot- DE> in TECHWR-L Digest:

>Stan,
>Sorry to differ with you, but the active present conditional voice:
>"(You/one/etc.) could/would/should draw a line in the sand."
>-- converts to the conditional present passive voice:
>"A line in the sand could/would/should be drawn."

You're disagreeing with someone else, not me. I never made any
statement either way about that example.

The example I was talking about -- in private email, by the way, so
I'm not sure why you posted a reply publicly -- was this one:

: >``Product A is available with options B and C.''

and that, as I said, is *not* in the passive voice. Indeed, "to be",
being intransitive, can never be made passive.

Regards,
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems Cleveland, Ohio USA +1 216 371-0043
email: stbrown -at- nacs -dot- net Web: http://www.nacs.net/~stbrown/


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