Passive voice

Passive voice.

The passive voice is used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than a person or object that performs the action. In the other words the most important thing or person becomes the subject of the sentence. Passive voice sentences politer than active sentences.

• The passive voice is used frequently

(We interested in the passive voice, not it who uses it)

The house was built in 1654. (We are interested in the house, not in who built it.)

• The road is being repaired. (We are interested in the road, not in the people who doing the repair.)

When do we use passive voice?

In some sentences, passive voice can be perfectly acceptable. You might use it in the following cases.

1. The actor is unknown.

The cave paintings of Lascaux were made in the upper old stone age. (We don’t know who made them)

2. The actor is irrelevant.

An experimental solar power plant will be built in the Australian desert. (We are not interested in who is building it.)

3. When you want to be vague about who is responsible.

Mistakes were made (common in bureaucratic writing.)

4. When you talk about general truth.

Rules are made to be broken. (By whomever, Whenever)

5. When you want to emphasize the person or thing acted on. For example, it may your main topic.

Insulin was first discovered in 1921 by researchers at the University of Toronto. It is still the only treatment for diabetes.

6. When you write in a scientific genre that traditionally relies on passive voice. Passive voice is often preferred in lab reports and scientific research papers, most notably in the materials and methods section:

The Sodium Hydroxide was discovered in water. This solution was then titrated with Hydrochloric acid. 

In passive voice:

In an active voice sentence, the subject is given the prominence.

We usually eat rice for lunch.

This sentence shows the action done by ‘we’ so it is prominent in the sense of the sentence.

Rice is usually eaten for lunch by us.

In this sentence, the ‘doer’ or the subject does not handle the prominence, instead, the object ‘rice’ appears as the most important factor.

The passive voice is so called because the person or thing denoted by the subject is not active but passive.

Change the object of the active sentence into the subject of the passive sentence.

Active voice:       Teacher always advises us.

Passive voice:     We are always advised by teacher.

 When the verb is changed form the active voice to the passive voice, the object of the active voice sentence becomes the subject of the passive voice sentence.

Passive voice is preferred, when the object is more important in the idea expressed.

 Example: Idea – Export of rubber from Thailand.

When this idea is expressed in a sentence, the commodity ‘rubber’ is more important. Therefore, such ideas are purposely expressed in passive voice.

Rubber is exported from Thailand.

The Passive voice is also preferred, when in the Active Voice sentence, the subject happens to be a vague pronoun or noun.

Example: somebody, they, people etc.

It is better to say, My pen has been stolen.

In such cases, the agent with ‘by’ is usually avoided.

However, ’by’ phrase cannot be avoided in places where the agent has come important and is necessary to complete the sense.

Example: Charles Dickens wrote the famous children’s novel ‘Oliver Twist’.

The famous children’s novel was written by Charles Dickens.

The Passive verbs are usually formed with the past participle form of verb. It is assisted by auxiliaries.

                                        Formation of the verbs.

                        Change of pronoun.

                                          Simple present tense

                                           Past tense

                                             Present continuous 

                                            Present perfect

                                                    Past perfect

                                                    Simple future

                                                   Future perfect

Passive without by:

The visitors were driven to the airport.

The following tenses cannot be changed into passive voice.

• Present perfect continuous.
• Past perfect continuous.
• Future perfect continuous.
• Sentence having intransitive verb.