“Carthago delenda est!” Do you think the passive voice is weak? That passive-voice construction (“Carthage must be destroyed!”) brought down a powerful nation.
Most writers at least vaguely recognize that the passive voice is often a bad thing. Fewer of them know why, or even what it is. People trying to sound smart use the term “passive voice” for many things that aren’t. It’s just one of several ways that verbs are often weaker than they could be. Let’s take a look at them and learn the differences.
Passive voice
The passive voice is everyone’s favorite whipping boy, yet it’s often useful and powerful. Grammar Girl comes through, as she often does, with a good explanation. It’s weak when the active voice would serve just as well. It’s useful when you don’t want to put the emphasis on an unimportant or unknown subject. In an action scene, which is stronger: “I’ve been shot!” or “Someone shot me!” The passive voice emphasizes what happened to the speaker, which is more interesting than the action of an unknown shooter. A detective might later say, “Someone shot him,” and at the point identifying the “someone” drives the suspense.
Inept teachers mark every use of the passive voice as wrong. This is the kind of nonsense that inspired the saying “Those who can’t do, teach.”
Linking verbs
Linking verbs, such as “be,” “become,” and “seem,” are relatively colorless. Vivid writing replaces them with more exciting verbs where possible. However, they aren’t examples of the passive voice. With the passive voice, the subject is acted on. Linking verbs just equate the subject with something else.
There’s nothing wrong with using them, especially if the main purpose of your piece is to convey practical knowledge. If you want to create more exciting text, though, you should look for alternatives. For example, I started to write the previous sentence as “If you want your text to be more exciting…” Making “create” the verb added a bit of strength, especially after using forms of “be” twice in the sentence before.
Linking verbs can make up a part of a passive construction, but they can also be used separately. “Mistakes were made” uses the passive voice. “Mistakes are costly” uses a linking verb.
Progressive tenses
Progressive tenses use the “-ing” form of verbs. They’re also called continuous tenses. “I was running.” “They had gone shopping.” “Everybody was Kung Fu fighting.” They’re a type of active voice. The subject is doing the running, shopping, or fighting. As the name implies, the describe an action in progress rather than one at a particular point in time or one that happens in general. “I write” tells you that I do it at some times. “I am writing” says that I have a work in progress.
Choosing between the two requires a good ear for meaning. You can write either “She’s living in New York” or “She lives in New York.” The first one hints that she might not stay there forever, while the second conveys more of a sense of permanence. The shade of difference is subtle, and neither one is wrong where the other would be right.
McDonald’s used the slogan “I’m lovin’ it.” German lacks a progressive tense, so the translation in that language was “Ich liebe es.” That translates back into English as “I love it.” It just doesn’t convey the same sense of immediacy, of being in the moment, as “I’m lovin’ it.”
If both tenses are equally good, go for the simple present. It saves a word and avoids a linking verb. It’s not a huge deal, but text that’s overloaded with progressive forms can be a bit ponderous.
When you’re writing a draft, don’t spend a lot of time worrying about the right verb form to use, as long as you convey the right meaning. Reviewing your draft lets you look at your verbs and think about where you can strengthen them. Each time you do this, you’ll improve your habits a little, so that next time you’ll make better choices without thinking about them.