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The passive voice has always included constructions in which
the person or thing acting is not the subject of the sentence:
"Vicki wrote this sentence" is active.
"This sentence was written by Vicki" is passive.
The passive does have its place, and not just to avoid
placing blame: a proud parent would reasonably say "My
daughter was awarded a scholarship" (and maybe not even
mention who gave it) rather than "The X Foundation gave
my daughter a scholarship." Sometimes the key information
is what happened and who it happened to, rather than who
did it.
Now can we discuss something other than the terminology
of grammar?
Vicki Rosenzweig
vr%acmcr -dot- uucp -at- murphy -dot- com
New York, NY
