Welcome to the Grammar Minute, where we’re saving the English language sixty seconds at a time! I’m Lauren Smyth, and let’s talk once again about the passive voice.
The other day, I was hit by a snowball. The person who did this probably isn’t listening, but if you are … just know I’m plotting my revenge. Anyway, that sentence was written in the passive voice—I was hit by the snowball. The problem with the passive voice is that, first of all, it’s not until the end of the sentence that you really know what happened. The second problem is that no one takes responsibility for the action. A snowball didn’t just fall out of the sky and hit me. Someone threw it. This sentence isn’t very interesting because no one in the sentence does anything.
Rewriting this sentence to be active rather than passive might be: [Redacted] threw a snowball at me. That way, every action has an acter, and it’s clear up front exactly what happened.
That’s your Grammar Minute! Visit thegrammarminute.com for more tips and tricks.