RE: Sentense construction

["Combs, Richard" <richard -dot- combs -at- Polycom -dot- com>]

Fred Ridder wrote:  

> Oh, no, here we go with passive and active sentences again...
> 
> I'm hoping against hope that Lauren's posting simply reversed 
> the numbers when she started discussing "active" vs. 
> "passive", because from a grammatical point of view the fist 
> example is passive voice (some points are listed by an 
> implied actor [the writer]) and the second one is active 
> voice ("we" discussed some points).

Right. Here's how I learned and remember the distinction: 

-- If the subject of the sentence is the _actor_, it's active voice. 

-- If the subject of the sentence is the _thing_being_acted_upon_, it's
passive voice. 

Of course, that only works if you can identify the subject of the
sentence. :-)

> Or maybe this is another issue of the infamous "neutral stance"?
> Or another case of the "semantic" voice where "active" voice 
> (with quotes) actually signifies the grammatical passive 
> voice and "passive" (with quotes) actually means active?

I'm biting my tongue. While grinning. It isn't easy. ;-) 

Richard


------
Richard G. Combs
Senior Technical Writer
Polycom, Inc.
richardDOTcombs AT polycomDOTcom
303-223-5111
------
rgcombs AT gmailDOTcom
303-777-0436
------




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