Active & Passive Voice
"The Grammar Detective"
This active and passive voice song is a classic mystery. Here’s a classic tale of a detective and a dame. Detective Esteban Flores helps a lady look into the disappearance of her puppy and explores the mystery behind a shady character who is only known by his initials, LIV. In relating her woes to Detective Flores, the lady uses only the passive voice. She has to use passive voice because she doesn’t know who did it! This frustrates the detective who prefers the active voice. Listen to the tale in active and passive voice, and see if you can solve the mystery before Detective Flores does!
ESTEBAN FLORES:
She blew into my office like a cold breeze. Off the bat I could tell she was the type to talk in the passive voice - putting verbs before subjects. Her sentences would be one big murky puddle, and I'd be the one getting my feet wet. My name's Esteban Flores. I'm a grammar detective.
LADY:
First off, my house was built like a fort,
By my uncle, Count Leroy the Fourth,
He was thought of as an evil mastermind,
Then he was thrown in jail for the last time.
Inside the fort, many diamonds had been stored,
Inside a safe, for forty years or more.
It was decided...
ESTEBAN:
By who?
LADY:
Me, probably,
To move the diamonds to the collar of my doggie.
So that he would be the subject of more talk,
And not be ignored, when he was walked.
But a mistake was made, my dog was puppy-napped,
The criminal must be found, and must be nabbed!
ESTEBAN:
Tell me about the night!
LADY:
Okay, that can get done,
The gate had been opened, the guards had been drugged,
A handkerchief was found, initialed LIV,
I must be helped, c'mon detective, please!
ESTEBAN:
Oh, she was using the passive voice alright - in her sentences, the action came before the person or thing that did the action. In some cases, she didn't reveal who was doing the action at all. When she said the guards were drugged - the real question was: “By whom?” I knew the only way to solve this case was to switch to the active voice. Even if it cost me my career.
Then I got to thinking, but thinking can be hard,
So I took a break, and drove around in my car.
I listened to the radio, NPR,
I heard a news flash that almost stopped my heart.
Count Leroy the Fourth had escaped from jail,
The police were hunting, but weren't on his trail.
It hit me like a wall hits a crash test dummy,
I called the lady with the news that was not funny.
I said, the LIV handkerchief's not inscrutable,
It stands for Leroy the Fourth in Roman numerals.
It was your uncle. He escaped from prison.
He opened the gate. He drugged the guards. Listen:
You find uncle, you'll find your diamonds and puppy.
LADY:
But where can he be found?
ESTEBAN:
Ha, look, trust me,
When I know, I'll tell you in the active voice.
Subject before verb: that's my word.
That’s my word.
The passive voice is a style of constructing sentences where the verb comes before the subject. It's opposite is the active voice, where the subject comes before the noun. Passive voice sentences always include the verb "to be," but when writers use active voice, they have the opportunity to use stronger verbs. But if you don't know who is doing an action in a sentence, you sometimes have to use passive voice.
This song explores active and passive voice with a murder mystery. The detective always uses the active voice. The lady who needs his help always uses the passive voice.
This song explores active and passive voice with a murder mystery. The detective always uses the active voice. The lady who needs his help always uses the passive voice.
Writers should avoid passive voice whenever possible. It isn't that passive voice is grammatically incorrect. It's just that sentences in passive voice are weaker than those in active voice. When writers avoid passive voice, they can employ stronger verbs in their sentences.
Passive voice: "My house was built like a fort by my uncle, Count Leroy the Fourth." This is because the person who built the house--the subject--comes at the end and after the word "by."
Active voice: "My uncle, Count Leroy the Fourth, built my house like a fort."
Active voice: "My uncle, Count Leroy the Fourth, built my house like a fort."
Who thought of Count Leroy as an evil mastermind? The lady never says, so the sentence is passive.
We could make it active by changing it to: "People thought of Count Leroy as an evil mastermind."
We could make it active by changing it to: "People thought of Count Leroy as an evil mastermind."
Who threw Count Leroy in jail? Pick someone, and rewrite the sentence actively.
This sentence is passive. It doesn't tell us who stored the diamonds in the fort.
Since we know that it was decided by the lady to move the diamonds to the collar of the doggie, the sentence can be made more active: "The lady decided to move the diamonds to the doggie's collar."
Who is walking the dog? If you know, you can make the sentence active.
"Mistakes were made" is a classic passive voice confession. President Ronald Reagan famously said "mistakes were made" by his administration during the Iran Contra scandal. But some people said he wasn't directly taking the blame. Why do you think he used passive voice?
This sentence is in the passive voice. We can change it to the active voice even if we don't know who stole the dog. "Someone stole my dog" or "I don't know who stole my dog" are both active voice sentences. What is the subject of the sentence "someone stole my dog"?
Who should find the criminal? Who should nab him or her? If the subject of both these sentences is the detective, how can you rewrite them in active voice?
When Detective Esteban Flores solves the crime, he'll find out who did it, and he'll be able to make these sentences active.
The detective is great at active voice. In fact all of his sentences are active. How do you know that "I listened to the radio" is an active sentence? How could you write the same sentence in a passive way?
Look at the rest of detectives lines in this section. Point out the active sentences.
Look at the rest of detectives lines in this section. Point out the active sentences.
The detective has solved the mystery and put the sentences back in active voice. Instead of saying passively, "The gate was opened," the detective can now actively say, "He opened the gate."
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