New Passive Voice Pet Peeve

I rarely watch TV but it seems when I do I hear something that is so grammatically ugly (or disingenuous) that I get ticked. This time I just had to tell you about it:

A little backstory first. I am re-editing and expanding the second book in my HowToDoItFrugally series (The Frugal Editor, Second Edition) and was just working on a segment about the passive voice, so I was primed for this experience.

So, this is what happened. I'm watching a pharmaceutical ad--and actually listening to--the voiceover that give all the possible side affects (usually in drone they hope no one will listen to!). These disclaimers that pharmaceuticals are required to run often use the passive voice but this one used a passive phrase I don't think I had heard before (or had not heard because they were doing such a good job of keeping me from noticing).

Anyway, it said "Occasionally things like, xxxx, xxxx, xxxx, and death can happen."

Excu-u-u-se me?  Can happen?  What a way to obscure and transfer responsibility.! Turn this around to make an active sentence and what they are really saying is: "Occasionally the drug causes death!"

Of course, passive voice isn't always a bad thing. In fact, in The Frugal Editor I show authors how to use it characterization of, say, politicians.  Do you think I should go back and make that "politicians and copywriters for pharmaceutical companies?"    
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  Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

When Passive is Bad, It's Very, Very Bad...When Passive is Good...it Works!

This is a tip from my Sharing with Writers newsletter. It always includes tips on book promotion but it also includes lots of good stuff on editing, too. Be sure not to miss another single issue: Send an e-mail with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line to HoJoNews@aol.com, and I'll do it for you!

If passive construction is difficult for you to overcome, you must see this guest post from Aggie Villanueva on my other blog for writers. http://sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com/2011/06/passive-writing-plagues-us-all.html

Also note that there is a section in The Frugal Editor that shows you when passive construction can be used to your benefit.  We wouldn't have it, if it didn't serve a purpose!

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults. and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success (How To Do It Frugally series of book for writers). Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com/writers_books.htm , where writers will find lists and other helps including Great Little Last-Minute Editing Tips on the Resources for Writers page. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at her Sharing with Writers blog. She tweets writers' resources at www.twitter.com/frugalbookpromo . Please tweet this post to your followers. We all need a little help with editing. (-:

Oh, those hateful "ings!" But look at the good they do!

I hate "ings." It's not that they're wrong. It's that I now they're going to cause me work. That's because they are indicators. (That's not a new grammatical term--or an old one as far as know. It's just a word that means what it's always meant, that they point something out to me!).

They are tell me I've used a progressive tenses that could be simplified. Or they point to passive tenses that would be better activated or of wordy dependent clauses and more.

Mind you, I didn't say I eradicate all I just use the find function in my Word program to see if I could have written crisper copy. Do the same thing with those ugly "ly" things that come on the end of adverbs.

Mmmm. Maybe I should love "ings." At least, unlike the grammar check, they do tip me off!

Have you checked out the other posts on this blog for refreshers on grammar, style choices, editing and more?


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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978515870. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com.

Politicians, the Passive Tense and Misunderstandings About Grammar

Many get passive tenses wrong. Writers have heard that the passive tense slows down the forward motion of their writing (which is true) and that it's very bad (which is only true sometimes--like when a writer prefers to move the story forward quickly or she wants to avoid unnecessary wordiness).

One hears questions like "How do I get this out of the passive tense? 'I was writing a story.' " It's true that words that end with an "ing" may indicate you have used the passive tense but that is not always true. In this case "I was writing" is in the past progressive tense. Not the passive tense. "I am walking" is in the present progressive tense. "I walked" is simple past tense.

"I was being blamed." Now THAT's a passive construction. You can tell because there is a sort of reflexive thing going on. To make it clearer, let's make the sentence "I was being blamed by my buddies." See how the action in this sentence kind of flows backward? To make it active, you'd need to turn the sentence around. "My buddies blamed me." Now you've got the action going from left to right and once that happens, you aren't in the passive any longer.

So does that mean people should give up on looking at the "ings" when they're editing?. Nope. Because "ings" can be indicators of other stuff you may not want in your copy. But then, so can all those extra verbs like "was," "were," "have." Most of us writers have a sense for when we can take words out. So watch for "ings" and some other indicators I mention in The Frugal Editor. Then examine them. Can you hone your copy to eliminate words you don't need without harming your meaning? Then do it. Or don't. It's your choice. Because passives aren't wrong. They serve a useful purpose. Politicians would be a sorry group without them. "Party regulars are being blamed for their lack of interest." See? They don't have to say who is doing the blaming when they use the passive tense.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson edits, consults and speaks on issues of publishing. Find her The Frugal Editor: Put Your Best Book Forward to Avoid Humiliation and Ensure Success at http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0978515870. Learn more about her other authors' aids at www.howtodoitfrugally.com. She blogs on all things publishing (not just editing!) at www.sharingwithwriters.blogspot.com.