The Passive Voice Is In Need Of Defending
There are no rules to writing, only preferences.
Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them.
That’s from Twelfth Night and I’ll bet Shakespeare had to put up with some frantic editorial rulemongers when they heard that line. They, with voices raised and lungs aflame, did likely shout:
Let not the passive voice ensnare thy quill!
Wield thy verbs with the Spirit of God’s Active Will!
Times have not changed.
There are no rules to writing, only preferences. Those who claim otherwise must show me the global owner’s manual to composition, or refer to the appropriate governing agency that enforces syntax, or at the very least come to agreement on what the hell the rules are (see: Oxford comma).
One of my preferences—along with using the Oxford comma—is for the clever deployment of the passive voice. Its effects are not as feckless as its name, and it just might save the country.
Sometimes in literature, as in life, emphasis belongs on the experience of action. The passive voice is a time-honored editorial construction which switches the reader’s focus for contemplating the subject of the sentence and stylishly re-tools the receiver of the action to become paramount to the action itself. Consider how precisely Thom Jefferson and Ben Franklin crafted the Declaration of Independence—America’s cry of freedom—with these words:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights...
You just know Adams was a whiny holdout because they made creation and endowment the critical items, not necessarily anyone’s Creator. Yet, the eloquent syntax actually emphasizes our very human role of being benefactor to something bigger than ourselves, and wasn’t that the whole point of the Declaration?
The report of my death was an exaggeration.
Mark Twain certainly knew the value of the passive voice. Now that I’m the same age as Twain when he was 57, I’m sick of homogenized writing too. Worse, I’m disgusted by so much efficiency, polish, and high-performance being used in place of perfectly fine flexibility, individualism, and development.
There are no mortal nor editorial sins committed when words flow naturally from and into whatever knobby construction comes from and of those words, even if they occasionally meander through passivity and are found strolling happily but distractedly in the run-on sentence aisle until eventually some very kind non sequiturs are relegated to serving as witnesses on the original patent application.
Not a trace of their bodies was ever found.
That last one was my own, plucked from A Fish Story, published right on this platform. If that example doesn’t demonstrate the awesome power of passivity, then I think you’re a lost cause.
To be clear, I like the active voice too. As I recall from my grammar classes in middle school, the active voice was established by an act of congress in 1937 to counter the effects of the Great Depression. All writing soon began to pick up the pace, and I agree with most historians that it was the ultimate weapon to end World War II.
But the active voice ultimately led to the Baby Boomer generation, and I feel that the country has been suffering ever since from what I term “cocaine prose”. Perhaps I’m showing my age, but I just think everything is too damn active now, including our constant digestion of content.
Editors constantly try to railroad me into only using active voice, claiming it’s clearer for readers and it helps the pacing of my prose. But I know that a little less directness provides a smoother ride. In fact, what that slight slowing of the reading eye introduces is exactly what is needed to compel readers to notice. It’s like a well-placed speed bump on a winding road, a contextual reminder of the drive itself.
I am not arguing that we go back to pre-Industrial-Era composition, but it wouldn’t hurt anyone if we all just added some breathing space to our lives, and that includes our Substacks.
It rubs the lotion on its skin, or else it gets the hose again.
The explanation for this quotation’s inclusion is not necessary to provide.
Anthony Head mostly writes about Texas.
If you enjoyed this post, hit the ♡ to let us know.
If it gave you any thoughts, please leave a comment.
If you think others would enjoy it, hit re-stack or share:
If you’d like to read more:
And if you’d like to help create more Juke, upgrade to a paid subscription (same button above). Otherwise, you can always help with a one-time donation via Paypal or Venmo.
I learned to use the active voice and to "rite tite" from journalism and a hard-core city editor who needed accurate reportage, which was quite verbose in the days of Mark Twain, who actually made up most of his stories when there was nothing meaty to report to the Territorial Enterprise in Virginia City, NV. I didn't know, however, that it came about as an Act of Congress in 1937. How it managed to turn around the dire conditions of the Great Depression, I will never understand, but thank you for this well-written manifesto on a subject that needs to be addressed by writers and editors everywhere.
I love well written wit! thank you Anthony