The cult of the active voice is an enduring influence in English grammar. From grade school onwards most everybody is taught that sentences in the active voice are the end-all and be-all of English, and that passive-voice sentences should be avoided like the plague. Grammar teachers furiously drill into every learner’s head that the sentence “Emilio hit Andres violently with a bat” is superior to “Andres was hit violently by Emilio with a bat.” The active-voice is thus elevated to icon status, never to be questioned nor resisted. No wonder then that many writers come up with clumsy, rubberstamp active-voice English sentences almost entirely and speak like the perpetually active-voice talking robots in science-fiction movies.
When we get down to the real-life dynamics of English, however, it’s difficult not to conclude that a totally active-voice essay, prose narrative, or speech is neither practical nor desirable. Indeed, speaking with an unbroken train of active-voice sentences is in many ways the equivalent of speaking stridently at all times or of singing a song on a high note from start to finish. We all know how exhausting this can be for both performer and audience. One major use of the passive voice is, in fact, to leaven such verbal performances—to provide low-energy counterpoints to the high-energy semantic field created by active-voice sentences.
But an even more compelling reason for using passive-voice sentences is that they are often the most natural and the only logical choice in particular communication situations. To see how true this is, let’s closely examine the active-voice sentence we earlier used as example: “Emilio hit Andres violently with a bat.” Assume now that right after you have said this, someone asks you to clarify what you said. The question would most probably be something like this: “What did you say happened to Andres?” Your answer would unlikely be the active-voice “Emilio hit Andres violently with a bat.” It would logically be the passive-voice “Andres was hit violently by Emilio with a bat,” which rightly highlights what happened to Andres.
Then, if your interlocutor further asks, “What instrument did you say was used?”, would it be sensible for you to answer with the same active-voice sentence as before, “Emilio hit Andres violently with a bat”? Definitely not; you would sound very obtuse and strange indeed! A more natural and sensible answer would be this other passive-voice sentence, “A bat was used by Emilio to violently hit Andres.”
So what does this tell us about how we should fashion our English sentences? Well, it’s that we should write them or say them in the most natural way possible—using the active voice if called for, but never hesitating to use the passive voice when logic and good sense demands it. Unless you are a student forced by your English teacher to stick to the active voice on pain of failing in the subject, or perhaps a journalist bound by an inflexible standing order by your editors never to use the passive voice, the active voice should only be a secondary consideration in writing your sentences.
The active voice certainly has its virtues, chief among them the way it reflects the usual way our thoughts form in our minds, but it need not be a straitjacket working against our natural instinct for clear, relevant, and forceful expression. The passive voice actually gives us both the latitude and the opportunity to focus on what we really need to focus on and to say exactly what we mean. Our prose and our speech will thus be squandering that latitude and opportunity by blindly and inflexibly deferring to the cult of the active voice.
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This is a condensation of a deeply-felt 825-word essay I wrote sometime in 2005.This essay, 2104th of the series, appeared in the column “English Plain and Simple” by Jose A. Carillo in the Campus Press section of the June 23, 2022 digital edition of The Manila Times
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In defense of the passive voice(Next week:
When even the passive voice won’t do) June 30, 2022
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