From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: "Russ P." Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: emacs documentation: what's active voice, passive voice? Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 12:29:28 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <322eca01-3bf5-4078-9439-57ba9503afc6@k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com> References: <4ca8659e$0$50453$14726298@news.sunsite.dk> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1291954760 5833 80.91.229.12 (10 Dec 2010 04:19:20 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2010 04:19:20 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Dec 10 05:19:16 2010 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1PQuQ7-0002MI-Pv for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 10 Dec 2010 05:19:15 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:40283 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1PQuOQ-0002fh-AQ for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Thu, 09 Dec 2010 23:15:38 -0500 Original-Path: usenet.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: comp.lang.lisp,gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs Original-Lines: 102 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 76.220.46.82 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1286134174 20683 127.0.0.1 (3 Oct 2010 19:29:34 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 3 Oct 2010 19:29:34 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: k1g2000prl.googlegroups.com; posting-host=76.220.46.82; posting-account=QXgf4wkAAADkKLOneY6DWJPpPelAjS0c User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.2.10) Gecko/20100915 Ubuntu/10.04 (lucid) Firefox/3.6.10,gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: usenet.stanford.edu comp.lang.lisp:293083 gnu.emacs.help:181619 comp.emacs:100544 X-Mailman-Approved-At: Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:23:33 -0500 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:77322 Archived-At: On Oct 3, 4:14=C2=A0am, Uday Reddy wrote: > On 10/3/2010 4:06 AM, Xah Lee wrote: > > > The Language Log recently has a blog asking readers to identify > > passive/active voice. (Apparantly, they've been beating this horse for > > a while, but i only started to read Language Log last month.) Before i > > tackle the question and post my redoubtable comment with implicit > > offense at grammarians, i thought to myself: it's been some 17 years > > when i read anything technical about passive/active voice in Struck& > > White... so let me look into Wikipedia to refresh myself just so i > > won't come out a fool. > > Gosh, for a while there, I thought Emacs had begun to complain about pass= ive voice. =C2=A0Heaven forbid! > > > > > > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0* =E3=80=8850 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice=E3=80= =89 (2009-04-17) By Geoffrey K > > Pullum. The Chronicle of Higher Education 55 (32): B15. chronicle.com > > > Quote: > > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous= esteem in > > which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from > > limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has > > not improved American students' grasp of English grammar; it has > > significantly degraded it. > > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0... > > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0What concerns me is that the bias against the passi= ve is being > > retailed by a pair of authors so grammatically clueless that they > > don't know what is a passive construction and what isn't. Of the four > > pairs of examples offered to show readers what to avoid and how to > > correct it, a staggering three out of the four are mistaken diagnoses. > > =E2=80=9CAt dawn the crowing of a rooster could be heard=E2=80=9D is co= rrectly > > identified as a passive clause, but the other three are all > > errors: ... > > Pretty damning =E2=80=94 or it would be if Strunk and White had actually = claimed any of those were passive constructions. They don=E2=80=99t. Here= =E2=80=99s how they introduce these examples: =E2=80=9CMany a tame sentence= of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituti= ng a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expression as= there is, or could be heard.=E2=80=9D (My link is to the online text of th= e Strunk-only 1918 edition, but the passage is unchanged in later editions.= ) > > Now, Strunk and White themselves use the passive voice in that sentence, = so one might say they are violating their own rules (though they=E2=80=99re= not =E2=80=94 they don=E2=80=99t say the passive may never be used, only t= hat active constructions tend to be more forceful). But they don=E2=80=99t = claim that their examples are all in the passive voice. Excessive deploymen= t of the passive is only one of the weaknesses they discuss in this section= . Their point is not only to urge the use of the active voice but to encour= age the use of =E2=80=9Cactive=E2=80=9D transitive verbs rather than limp d= eclarations of being. It=E2=80=99s sound advice: =E2=80=9Cdead leaves cover= ed the ground=E2=80=9D really is more forceful and better than =E2=80=9Cthe= re were a great number of dead leaves lying on the ground.=E2=80=9D > > One can fairly complain that Strunk and White perceive the threat to good= style as coming from only one direction. Consider their next section, in w= hich they command, =E2=80=9CMake definite assertions. Avoid tame, colorless= , hesitating, non-committal language. Use the word not as a means of denial= or in antithesis, never as a means of evasion.=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9CDenial,= =E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Cevasion,=E2=80=9D =E2=80=9Ccolorless=E2=80=9D =E2=80=94 = these are tendentious terms. Someone who takes the authors=E2=80=99 advice = too literally will always write fortissimo, without any understanding of th= e uses and virtues of the pianissimo. Irony, impartiality, subtlety, and ne= gation do have a place in good writing. And bad prose can be Stentorian jus= t as it can be anodyne, though admittedly most writers, especially in acade= mia, err on the mushy side. > > =C2=A0 =C2=A0-- =C2=A0The Elements of Bad Style? > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0Posted on April 26th, 2009 by Daniel McCarthy = =C2=A0 =C2=A0 > =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0 =C2=A0http://www.amconmag.com/mccarthy/2009/04/26/th= e-elements-of-bad-style/ > > I have no idea why the linguists have begun to stab each other. =C2=A0But= it looks like a good idea for Computer Scientists to stay out of it. > > Cheers, > Uday For technical writing, I favor active voice where appropriate, but in some cases I think passive voice is preferable. Consider, for example, "The parameters were perturbed, and the test was run again." I could rewrite that in active voice as "We varied the parameters and ran the test again." But what if there is no "we", only "I"? Then I would have to write "I varied the parameters and ran the test again." That just doesn't strike me as good style for a technical paper. The point is not who did it but that it was done. What difference would it make if a monkey did it, as long as he did it right? Russ P.