active vs. passive voice

[Fred Ridder]

Ned Bedinger wrote (in small part):
 
> That's the well-known process by which the noun 'display' theoretically 
> becomes the intransitive verb display, driven by a logical need for a 
> new term that is specific to a then-new technology.
> 
> English doesn't reserve this facility only for foreign words. If I set 
> up a display(n) of my wares at the Saturday flea market, I can also say 
> (and be generally understood) that my wares are displayed(v,i) at the 
> flea market. This usage and construction sounds right to my ear, and is 
> just too commonly encountered to be a big dumb mistake made with a 
> transitive verb. English (the living language) seems to allow it.
 
 
There is a fundamental flaw in your analysis regarding the object of 
the verb. One definition of the passive voice is that the object of the 
verb is the subject of the sentence, so by definition you can only 
use the passive voice with transitive verbs. 
 
Quoting Wikipedia on the subject to get an expression of the same
idea in more formal language:
  In English, as in many other languages, the passive voice is the 
  form of a transitive verb whose grammatical subject serves as the 
  patient, receiving the action of the verb. <snip> The subject of a 
  verb in the passive voice corresponds to the object of the same 
  verb in the active voice. 
 
There *is* a valid intransitive form of the verb "display" but it 
only refers to the mating behavior of certain fauna. 
 
-Fred Ridder
 
 
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