Read on Twitter
While we're all talking and thinking about how police violence is reported in the media, a few PSAs from your local descriptivist editor.
1) "Passive tense" isn't a thing in English.
1) "Passive tense" isn't a thing in English.
2) "Passive VOICE" is, and it's a) a *specific* grammatical structure, and b) a useful, natural feature of the language.
It CAN be used for bad ends, such as obscuring the agent in a recount of events, but that's not the only thing it does.
It CAN be used for bad ends, such as obscuring the agent in a recount of events, but that's not the only thing it does.
Passive voice isn't *inherently* a tool of authoritarianism or doublespeak, even if it's possible to employ it that way. You can't excise if from public discourse, and you shouldn't.
But even if you did, it wouldn't have the effect you want, because:
But even if you did, it wouldn't have the effect you want, because:
3) Passive voice isn't the only linguistic trick that can obscure agency, equivocate, or depict a card-palming version of events.
Which is to say, not everything that does this is "passive voice."
Which is to say, not everything that does this is "passive voice."
And lots of things depict a passive *tone* as part of their trickery that aren't passive *voice*.
Passive voice as a phenomenon of English is not the enemy. Bootlicking and lies and half-truths made to handwave brutality and serve power - THOSE are enemies.
Passive voice as a phenomenon of English is not the enemy. Bootlicking and lies and half-truths made to handwave brutality and serve power - THOSE are enemies.
You make think this is missing the point, but I say that allowing words to have clear meanings IS the point.
If we demand clarity and precision, it behooves us to also be clear and precise, and to know what we mean.
If we demand clarity and precision, it behooves us to also be clear and precise, and to know what we mean.
We ABSOLUTELY should - *must* - criticize the way stories are told about authority and violence, and the choices people make, the words they use, when they tell them.
We should also be sure we know what we're saying when we do.
We should also be sure we know what we're saying when we do.
I expect that, at the root, "passive voice" isn't the real problem in most of these headlines, even when that's what is actually being used.
The real problem is the desire to depict death and brutality as if they're things that just *happen* to some people.
The real problem is the desire to depict death and brutality as if they're things that just *happen* to some people.
The real problem is the framing of corrupt systems as if they were natural phenomena.
The real problem is the way a deeply-rooted culture of bloodthirstiness and white supremacy is obscured, and excused, and taken for granted by the people who ought to be exposing it.
The real problem is the way a deeply-rooted culture of bloodthirstiness and white supremacy is obscured, and excused, and taken for granted by the people who ought to be exposing it.
The real problem is the drive to give comfort to power and dismiss the voices of the people it crushes, and uses, and murders.
Not "passive voice."
So please, I beg you, say what you mean.
Not "passive voice."
So please, I beg you, say what you mean.
