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Maybe you`ve experimented with turning on Grammar Checking, in MS Word? It produces those annoying little green underlines for no apparent reason. If you right click to find out why, you`ll also discover that a sentence has been sometimes labeled "passive voice." What is that?
Quoting from About.com, here`s one good example:
It
is often used in business and in other areas where the object of the
action is more important than those who perform the action.
For Example: We have produced over 20 different models in the past two years. Changes to: Over 20 different models have been produced in the past two years.
For Example: We have produced over 20 different models in the past two years. Changes to: Over 20 different models have been produced in the past two years.
A nice rule of thumb involves the use (in the writing, or in your own mind) of the word "it."
Suppose you want a hamburger. You`d say, "I want a hamburger," right? How would you say the same thing, but include the word "it" so as to be less personally involved?
- "It would be nice to have a hamburger."
- "If there were a hamburger around, it would be nice to have one."
- "Having a hamburger would be something I could go for."
Using "it" is only one little rule of thumb. Another idea, assuming you know what`s a verb and what`s a subject, is to make the verb---the action word---the "guy who`s doing all the work."
"I fly planes." That`s a sentence where "I....me" is doing the work. I`m performing an action, talking about it using a verb. I`m flying the actual plane. How does that become a passive sentence? What if we made the "flying" the guy doing the work?
"Flying planes can be done with much difficulty." Now it`s the "flying planes" that are doing the work in the sentence, not you...me...or anyone else.
Passive voice is "passive" because there doesn`t seem to be anyone involved, much less the writer, in the meaning of the sentence. "It" just happens...somehow, all by itself, like a fact of nature.
If you`re interested, and just for the fun of it, go ahead and post any sentence. Then, see if you can post the same meaning in its opposite sense? In other words post an active voice sentence, then make it mean the same thing, but in passive voice. Or...vice versa, should it be something of interest. :-)
