the.com/active voice
The subject does the thing instead of the thing mysteriously happening to it.
means A grammatical construction where the subject performs the action of the verb directly, as in 'she wrote the letter,' rather than receiving it.
from From Latin vox activa, part of the grammarians' old divide between actio (doing) and passio (receiving/suffering) — the same 'passio' that gives us 'passive' and, more distantly, 'patient' and 'passion.' Latin grammar borrowed these from rhetoric and philosophy, where 'active' and 'passive' described cause and effect in the world before they ever described sentences. The term settled into English grammar books by way of French and Latin textbook tradition, where it's stayed put ever since, quietly bullying generations of students who'd rather just say 'mistakes were made.'
- formula
- subject does verb, not verb done to subject
- classic test
- if you can add by zombies, it's passive
- orwell's rule
- never use passive where active will do
- politician's favorite
- passive voice hides who's to blame