Somebody sometime was told by someone that the use of the passive voice is incorrect. Since that time, writing teachers have taken pen to paper to mark out, to rid the English language of one of its most poetic grammatical constructions: the passive voice.

I’m always surprised by how many writers and teachers of writing vehemently believe that the passive voice is wrong, in the same way that, say, subject-verb agreement errors are wrong.

If you’ve never considered this before, consider it now: style books are political. Moreover, they are personal and biased, based on the writer’s own predilections for language.

If I ruled the universe, students would not use style books to learn to write. They may read them in order to obtain an appreciation, however, of the opinions of other writers. To read about writing is a beautiful thing. What students would use to learn how to write would be great writing. (They would read Tristam Shandy.) Reading great writing is what teaches great writing.

And great writing is full of the passive voice; it breaks all the rules prescribed by handbooks on style.

ShareThis