The telephone was invented by Alexander Graham Bell.The Declaration of Independence was written by Thomas Jefferson.Often, we do this if the subject is the focus of attention or is considered more important in a given context. We can use the passive voice to shift the focus to the receiver of an action rather than the performer. When emphasizing the person or thing acted on Prop swords are often flimsy, so they must be carefully used.The statue was in a location where it could easily be seen.Sometimes, the passive voice is used to speak generally about a truth. After the performance is over, the fake money will be destroyed immediately.The new shopping mall will be built downtown.The passive voice may be used when it really isn’t important who or what does something. This poem was written during the ninth century.The jewels were stolen from the safe last night.You are likely to see the passive voice used in reports of police investigations or historical discoveries where an unknown person or group did something. When the performer of the action is unknown Let’s look at some instances where the passive voice may be the best option. However, it isn’t wrong to use the passive voice, In fact, there may be instances where the passive voice makes more sense to use over the active voice. In formal writing, the passive voice is usually only reserved for very specific uses and is otherwise avoided in most cases. Among other reasons, this is because the passive voice can make sentences longer and more confusing than they need to be. It is highly likely that an English teacher has warned you against using the passive voice at some point. In general, writers and speakers tend to avoid using the passive voice. The party was held by the college fraternity.In all of these sentences, you will notice that the subject is having something done to it rather than doing something itself. The following sentences all use the passive voice. admired, bought, convinced, discovered, eaten, found, given, hidden, investigated, jostled, kicked, loved, mentioned, nudged, opened, picked, questioned, removed, surprised, taken, uncovered, visited, washed, yanked, zapped.A transitive verb is “a verb accompanied by a direct object and from which a passive can be formed.” The following list has examples of past participles of a variety of verbs ready to be used in the passive voice. The most important thing to know about passive verbs is that they must be transitive verbs. Want to know what else a prepositional phrase can do? Learn more about them here. The sentence My wallet was stolen by a pickpocket is an example of this. Often, the passive voice also uses a prepositional phrase beginning with the word by to state who or what is performing an action on the subject. When using the passive voice, the verb be is conjugated and put into the proper verb tense to show when in time an action happens. + + įor example, the sentence My wallet was stolen is a grammatically correct sentence that uses the passive voice.In order to use the passive voice, our sentence will need to follow a basic structure. A verb is in the active voice when the subject is the one performing an action, as in the sentence Eduardo cooked the dinner. Instead, it was acted on: Eduardo cooked it.Ī sentence that doesn’t use the passive voice instead uses what is called the active voice. In this sentence, the subject ( the dinner) did not do anything. For example, the sentence The dinner was cooked by Eduardo uses the passive voice. A verb is in the passive voice when the subject of a sentence or clause is acted on rather than performing an action. The passive voice is one of two main “voices” of verbs. Before we get into that, though, let’s look a little closer at what the passive voice actually is and how we use it in our speech and writing.
This might sound unfair, but there’s often a good reason why the passive voice gets left out in the cold. While this sounds exciting, the passive voice is usually left off of the guest list when it comes time to hold a grammar party. The passive voice flips the script and begins a sentence by saying who or what had something done to it. But what’s going on in those sentences? Don’t they look … backwards?Īll of these sentences are written in what is known as the passive voice. The party was held by a generous celebrity.
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