Saturday, March 04, 2006

Won by Mercedes-Benz

When you were in school, your English composition teacher probably told you to use active voice and avoid passive voice in your writing.

I tend to agree. Active voice is more natural, more conversational, and more approachable than passive voice. But as with most rules for effective writing, there are exceptions.

First, let’s briefly review the difference between active and passive voice.

Sentences and clauses generally contain subjects, verbs, and objects – usually in that order. In the sentence, Mary had a little lamb, “Mary” is the subject, “had” is the verb, and “lamb” is the object. This is active voice.

But in the sentence, A little lamb was had by Mary, the subject, verb, and object are the same, but the order has changed, presumably to emphasize the object instead of the subject.

Passive voice can be confusing and awkward. It’s cumbersome for a reader to get through a series of sentences that lead with the object. But in some cases, there’s no way around it. In others, you might actually want to use the passive voice. Here are a few examples:

Subject is implied:

George W. Bush was elected President. You could turn this passive sentence into an active one, but why bother? It’s obvious that the voters elected the President. I could say, My mother gave birth to me in St. Louis, but I’d probably rather go with, I was born in St. Louis.

Subject is unknown:

My house was built in 1920. Sure, someone built it, but I don’t know who it was. I could say, My house is 86 years old, but perhaps I want to emphasize the date, not the age. If I write, My car was stolen last night, it’s probably pretty clear that the crime remains unsolved.

Object is more important than subject:

More than 100 carcinogens were found in cigarette smoke. Presumably, researchers discovered this. But constantly emphasizing “researchers” or a “study” is unwieldy. In discussing a legal case, I might write, The motion to dismiss was denied, but the motion itself is far more important than the judge who denied it.

For dramatic effect:

I recently saw a Mercedes-Benz commercial about the very first automobile race in 1894. In that commercial is the line: That race was won...by Mercedes-Benz. The line could have been Mercedes-Benz won that race, but that wouldn’t be as powerful.

Do you see anything in common about the examples I used above? All of those sentences are in the past tense. Passive voice is most effective for discussing past events. When writing about the present or the future, active voice should be chosen.

Oops! I meant: When writing about the present or the future, choose the active voice.

Posted by Richard Bloch

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