Re: preferred voices?

On Sat, 23 Sep 2000, nicole perrin wrote:

> Yesterday we were reviewing the passive voice in my French class, and
> one of the points the teacher made quite emphatically is that the active
> voice is preferred.  I know that this is also the case with English,
> although I could never understand it.  The only explanation I've ever
> gotten is that it's not as powerful as active but I don't really buy
> that.  Are any of your conlangs prejudiced against the passive voice?
> Or any other voice for that matter?  (Mine aren't)
Mine uses active case marking and there *is* no passive (I couldn't think
of any way it would make sense).

In English the reason I've often seen (and the reason I avoid it much of
the time) is that the passive often obscures responsibility.  For
example, a company might say something like: "Two employees have been
killed and the matter is under investigation"; there are a lot of ways to
use the passive voice to misdirect the reader/listener.  (Probably a book
on rhetoric or style could give real-life examples.)  Which isn't to say
that the passive voice isn't useful and even preferred in other
constructions, e.g. when you don't *know* who/what was responsible, or in
other stylistic situations.  I used to turn semantic somersaults avoiding
the passive before I came to the latter realization.

Another reason you might not see it, at least as far as college writing
classes are concerned :-/ is that some professors will actively dock
points for *any* passive construction even when it is stylistically and
grammatically justified, which I feel is stupid, but as a writing tutor I
have no control over what the professors do.

YHL