I write all day and every day. I use grammarly, it's amazing! I also wear a tie....
Mary Dash's Writing Tips
21–30 of 74 posts
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#22I'm enjoying this read, however one example stood out to me. I personally find:
"Although Mr. Doe was found to be eligible for this position; all of the positions in Boston had already been filled by our personnel office prior to receiving his application."
to sound much better than:
"Though we found Mr. Doe eligible for the position, our personnel office had filled all positions in Boston before we received his application."
YMMV
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#23I concede that people have a tendency to overuse the passive voice, perhaps to appear less assertive, but... I find this injunction against the passive voice simplistic. The active and passive versions of a sentence _mean_ different things, and one cannot blindly substitute one for the other. Compare: 1. There was a cat in the house. She had not been fed by her owner that morning. She meowed loudly at the passing pos…
The famous opening line of Pride and Prejudice relies on passive voice: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." If you specify who's acknowledging it then the joke doesn't work.
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#24I'm enjoying this read, however one example stood out to me. I personally find: "Although Mr. Doe was found to be eligible for this position; all of the positions in Boston had already been filled by our personnel office prior to receiving his application." to sound much better than: "Though we found Mr. Doe eligible for the position, our personnel office had filled all positions in Boston before we received his appl…
And from https://plainlanguage.gov/guidelines/conversational/use-must... :
Before: "The applicant shall be notified by registered mail in all cases where the permit applied for is not granted, and shall be given 30 days within which to appeal such decision."
After: "We will notify you by registered mail if we reject your application. You must file an appeal of that decision within 30 days."
That changes the meaning to make it sound like appeal is mandatory. It should be something like "If you choose to appeal that decision, you must file your appeal within 30 days."
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#25Re: pronouns.
They suggest the use of "you", but I feel pretty good about using "we" in its place quite often.
For example: "we can now see that x is in fact greater than 10" sounds a lot less demanding than "you can now see ...".
I, the author, am also a reader.
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#26I'm curious how much of this applies to non-American English writing as well. It is no secret the style in American English is to be causal and direct. But has this trend come to prominence in other parts of the Anglosohere?
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#27I concede that people have a tendency to overuse the passive voice, perhaps to appear less assertive, but... I find this injunction against the passive voice simplistic. The active and passive versions of a sentence _mean_ different things, and one cannot blindly substitute one for the other. Compare: 1. There was a cat in the house. She had not been fed by her owner that morning. She meowed loudly at the passing pos…
These are recommendations for Federal government agencies on an official U.S. government Web site, so it seems a reach to suggest that they're intended for authors of romantic letters.
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#28I concede that people have a tendency to overuse the passive voice, perhaps to appear less assertive, but... I find this injunction against the passive voice simplistic. The active and passive versions of a sentence _mean_ different things, and one cannot blindly substitute one for the other. Compare: 1. There was a cat in the house. She had not been fed by her owner that morning. She meowed loudly at the passing pos…
These are recommendations for Federal government agencies on an official U.S. government Web site, so it seems a reach to suggest that they're intended for authors of romantic letters.
"My dearest IRS auditor, I write to you this day to warm your heart and remind you that you are always on my mind..."
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#29Earlier quoted context omitted.
These are recommendations for Federal government agencies on an official U.S. government Web site, so it seems a reach to suggest that they're intended for authors of romantic letters.
"My dearest IRS auditor, I write to you this day to warm your heart and remind you that you are always on my mind..."
"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of an audit."
Re: Mary Dash's Writing Tips
#30The thing about avoiding passive voice drives me batty- not just here, that admonition is everywhere. Sometimes it's useful, that's why it exists. Using it does not (necessarily) indicate a moral failing.
> that admonition is everywhere Generally speaking, I think it's because this advice is very easy to remember and repeat. Passive voice is easy to spot. Someone reading to look for errors can easily go "Aha! You did a naughty here." because they were once told that "passive = bad".
> Passive voice is easy to spot.
A whole list of evidence to the contrary:
http://www.lel.ed.ac.uk/grammar/passives.html#passivepostlis...
For example:
https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1504
> "On religious tolerance, he gently referenced the Christians of Lebanon and Egypt, then lamented that the 'divisions between Sunni and Shia have led to tragic violence' (note the use of the passive voice)."
The only way that statement is in the "passive voice" is if you want to ding the speaker for not blaming someone specific; that is, it's only in the passive voice in the political sense. Grammatically, it's in the active voice.
Here's a piece on what the passive voice is: