Passive Voice is (usually) Evil

This is usually the first lesson in any writing class I teach. And it annoys me a little that most teachers overlook this problem entirely.

It’s surprising how many people just don’t see a problem with saying, “The taxes were raised last night.”

Me? Well, I see a huge problem with letting the people who raised the taxes get away with doing so. There’s no doubt that the folks on the city council want you to think that your taxes “were raised” last night by some mysterious, unaccountable, force. But that’s not really what happened.

No, what happened is, you see, the city council members actually raised the taxes.

Did you catch all that? Well, it all happened kind of quickly. So, let’s review:

“The taxes were raised last night.”

“The city council member raised the taxes last night.”

Because I decided to avoid the evil passive voice in the second sentence, you now know that it’s those scoundrels on the city council who actually raised your taxes. Feel free to vote ’em out of office next time around.

I hope you’re starting see now, why I say that the passive voice is evil: it lets people avoid responsibility. That’s why government and corporate leaders are so fond of it.

But that’s exactly why everyone else should be wary of it.

Any time you find yourself writing about some inanimate object sitting around and passively letting some unknown person do something to it, well, you’re toying around in the Gates of Hell, er, I mean, the passive voice. Get out! Fast! Don’t release the Beasts!

The only time most Godly souls have any need for the passive voice is when they don’t know who is doing a particular thing. If we don’t know who stole a glove, for example, then, well, it’s not evil to say the glove was stolen

I hope this clears it up.

A lot of teachers will tell you that the passive voice is all about the “noun receiving — rather than doing — the action in a sentence.” Well, that is true. But it’s also confusing and boring. So, that’s why most people have no idea what the passive voice really is.
I hope I’ve helped fix that.

Just remember that the passive voice is usually evil. Unless you’re hiding something, you don’t need it.