What an odd thread. Going through 3,500 sentences because a handful of them might be passive? Pretty much ANY editing exercise has got to be more worth your time than that...? @ChickenFreak so often points out that passive voice is very rare, in both amateur and professional writing, and so it isn't worth the head room writers give it. She's right.
I returned to this post, because I realized that the statement above suggests that you do indeed regard the words as a problem. Not passive voice. (Which is rarely found and even more rarely actually a problem.) Not filtering. But the words. And they're not. They're absolutely not "problem words".
I won't comment one way or the other on which expression works better in each case. But not one of those sentences, before or after, is in the passive voice. Passive voice would read like: It was hoped he would be found alive. I was afraid it would be found by her. My teeth were pressed by my [unspoken?] words, like . . . Jason's funeral was held a few days after . . . Spring is hinted at by the cool March winds. US-24 is filled with an endless march of headlights . . . My back has been tightened by the two hours of sitting . . . The ones with the linking verbs you can't make passive, as they have no direct object and no action verb to act upon it. This article might help: http://writerunboxed.com/2016/08/09/actively-defending-the-passive-voice/
I'm reading a long and very good discussion of passive voice, what it really is, and many examples of false diagnosis: http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/~gpullum/passive_loathing.html Apparently the author also created some videos. I haven't watched them yet, but this page has links: https://stancarey.wordpress.com/2015/10/27/fear-and-loathing-of-the-passive-voice/ Edited to extract a quote from the conclusion of the first link: The topic of this paper is not so much a construction as a strange cultural trend emerging in the 20th century among language mavens, writing tutors, and usage advisers. Unneeded warnings against sentences that have nothing wrong with them are handed out by people who actually don't know how to identify instances of what they are warning against, and the people they aim to educate or intimidate don't know enough grammar to reject the nonsense they are offered. The blind warning the blind about a nonexistent danger. Sounds about right.
Yes. You've nailed it. And so has @ChickenFreak in her previous post. That quote from G Pullum is perfect. His article she links to is a stunner. "Blind leading the blind" indeed.
It's neither active nor passive; it's categorical. But I am loathe to add that complication to this discussion. All I can say is that nothing beats a clear understanding of subject, direct object, and indirect object. Also a sound understanding of why the copula verb is a very different kind of verb to other verbs needs to be understood.
I prefer to preserve my ignorance... I think it gives me a charming naivete! Except - oh my goodness! I just looked at the Wikipedia entry and I think there's a direct connection between the word "copula" and the word "copulate". That makes it much more interesting!
Addressing this sort of thing in specific critiques is much better than simply having a list of supposed problem words, which is potentially damaging to new authors rather than helpful. In an actual critique, you will have context, tone, and other evidence of the larger work to deal with, and with all of that information you can make an evaluation of whether a given use that may or may not be passive works within the greater story. A list of words that people should consider problems removes what is actually needed to evaluate a given usage.
I'm old enough to have gotten the full inoculation of sentence diagramming back in 5th and 6th grade. Learning a language later in life that makes use of a grammatical case system with inflections (Russian) served as a "booster" for that initial inoculation. If people just had a better understanding of what these things are, their purpose, and their place, all these ham-fisted "Do this, not that" rules would evaporate. Does anyone else in my age bracket remember this book from the 70's and early 80's?
I was weaned on something similar. Learning all that stuff at an early age seems to make it automatic and natural. And 99.999% of grammar is about communicating more effectively. I'm not at all sure that all, most or a lot of the rules are ham-fisted or only for beginners.
I know this post is probably done and dusted but I thought I would have my say After reading everyones thoughts, I'm confused. I don't think I'll ever get my head around it all. Passive this and passive voice that, geez, shoot me. I happen to use these words alot and I hate myself for it. I know they're not correct because I read it all the time on blogs or on writing tip websites. I try to not take too much notice of the do's and don'ts of writing anymore because it is harmful and I have been brain washed in the past. The thing is, I know how I write is not great. The words I use often are weak. These crappy words seem to follow me around like blue bottles. They sneak into every chapter I write without me even realising. I tell more often than I show. It drives me mad how easily I revert back to what most people call, bad writing. Writer's intuition - I know I don't have it, and please don't mistaken what I say as me putting mself down because I'm not, I mearly want to point out the fact that I am not as educated, I feel, as most people on here. I feel at a disavantage. I love to make stories up. How I write them however, may not be of great quality but I have fun writing them all the same. I came on here to learn and to persevere in what I love to do in my spare time. And breath. I can hear you all sharpening your knives. Go easy people, I am barely a week old.
My one and only suggestion is that when talking about these topics amongst other writers, be careful not to use the word passive to mean weak or wimpy or generally writing that lacks punch. Passive voice is a very specific syntactic structure, where weak writing is a much broader, fuzzy-edged thing.
I hear you and your right. What I tried to say, very badly, obviously is that I use these words, which are classed as passive, all the time or so I've been told. I'm not saying using passive is a bad thing but with me, I tend to use it, too much and it weakens the way I tell my story. That's what I feel, anyway or maybe I'm so far gone I'm just not getting it? The thought of posting my work brings me out in a cold sweat.
They're not classed as passive. They're fine. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, wrong with the words listed in the first post. Nothing. Yes, some of them can sometimes be used in constructions that turn out not to be the very best constructions in the context that they're used. That is true of every word in existence.
Seconding @ChickenFreak, there are no passive words, verbs or otherwise. Some verbs are considered 'weak', but even those aren't meant to be completely avoided under penalty of death It just means there are usually more evocative or interesting words you can use instead. For example, forms of 'to be' (is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been) can usually be replaced with a different word with better results overall - rather than "He was by the door", saying "He stood by the door", "He leaned on the door frame", or "He sat in a chair near the door" just gives more information, which is usually a good thing. But forms of 'to be' aren't inherently bad and don't weaken your writing - it's only overuse that's a problem. That's a good rule of thumb for everything about writing: pretty much anything is fine, as long as it's in moderation. People who tell you "never do X" or "Y is always bad" and "Z will make your writing terrible" can usually be safely ignored, frankly. You know the thing about Sith and absolutes. Passive voice is when the object of a sentence is put before the subject, for instance, "The door was opened by me" rather than "I opened the door" - and it has nothing to do with verb/word choice, it just sounds awkward. I hope that helps!
Wow! That does help a lot actually. I think I'm still under the influence of the do' and don'ts of the past. My problem is the repetitive use of these words. I annoy myself but you have made me feel better with what you have mentioned and I thank you. Well, all of you for your comments as they have been most constructive.