Passive Voice - Help Please!

[Erin99]

I decry "was" an evil word, to be avoided where possible!

He was sitting - weaker
He sat - stronger

We've had this conversation before, though.

Ooh, Brian! We'll have to agree to disagree. Yes, hunt for "was"s, but not all "was"s are bad.

There's a time and a place for progressive tense; it can alter a sentence's meaning just so, or fit better with the flow of a line. I wouldn't use it everywhere, but sometimes...

 

[Brian G Turner]

Indeed, not all, just as passive voice has its place.

This is something that was called out on one of pieces, after using "was [verb]ing" almost all the time.

 

[Hex]

I use it too, but since I mainly write in present tense, it's "is".

There are differences between:

"So, John's standing by the door and he's looking right at me."

and "John stands by the door and he looks right at me."

but that (and the "John was standing by the door") is continuous, not passive.

 

[chrispenycate]

He was sitting = past continuous. Would generally be used when one action is going on,
and another intervenes "He was sitting on the porch when the lightning struck".

He sat = a single movement.

Same difference as between "I sit" and "I'm sitting".

Nothing to do with active or passive.

 

[Kylara]

*slinks quietly in* I quite like passive *shrinks into corner* I think there are times when passive can be lovely, but then I often like the arty "literaturey" stuff (also ADVERBS) also I find the passive can push the reader into a distance from what you are talking about which can be useful at times *quickly sidles out of the door*

 

[Phyrebrat]

I say 'was sat' all the time or 'were sat.' I also say 'sat sitting' or 'stood standing.'.

I do the same. I wonder whether constructions like this are regional (in terms of speaking). I'm from Bournemouth and I hear a lot of this way of speaking from there and along the South Coast. I put something up in crits a couple years ago and I forget what it was exactly, but it was along the lines of;

I was stood on the chair

And was advised to change to

I stood on the chair

Or

I was standing on the chair

Which I did not like. I wanted 'I was stood' as it gave the voice the character I wanted.

pH
Ps Saying this now I don't think it's limited to Southerners like me; I can imagine someone in the Rovers Return speaking like that.
Pps. I know my examples are not passive in the sense we're taking about.

 

[The Judge]

I don't think it's dialect and/or regional, not nowadays anyway, as much as non-standard** English which is propagated by TV and other media and isn't corrected by anyone, similar to the non-American "anymore" as one word, not two. As long as you're aware it's non-standard and use it appropriately, ie to show voice, whether in dialogue or close narrative, that's fine. Just be wary of using it in more distant narrative or for all characters, as it then simply looks like poor use of English.


** that's me being polite when what the pedant in me really means is "wrong"...

 

[Hex]

It's used around here, "I was sat" and similar.

"I had went" (etc) is another construction up here which tends to be used by the same kind of voices. Not sure if it's more region-based or not.

So as TJ says, I think "I was sat" is a non-standard variant of English rather than a specifically local one. Also: yes. Not passive (unlike the one Mouse used, where it could have been), just uh non-standard.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I don't even want to comment on the horrors I get picked up on. Apparently Irish-English-with-a-mix-of-Scots isn't just wrong; it's a whole different language.

 

[lauren$77]

I've never even considered passive and active voice before! I'm really hoping its intuitive!

I don't even want to comment on the horrors I get picked up on. Apparently Irish-English-with-a-mix-of-Scots isn't just wrong; it's a whole different language.

Yes I use Irish slang but have an English accent. I've been picked up for it a few times, so have to try really hard not to use it now

 

[Erin99]

Thanks, Chrispy! Just as I was about to switch my PC off last night, I realised I'd written "present continuous" rather than "past continuous" - I hoped someone would correct me.

I say "was sat" and "was stood", too. I didn't even know it was bad until JJ pointed it out. It took me months to work out what was wrong about it, cos it just felt so natural...

And heh, yeah, I've heard the Scots says "I had went" - very odd! But cute.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

This line here is catching people out on me - we say away back and I want a little bit of dialect. I did change tea to dinner though, cos it was cqusing chaos. (You can't eat tea....)

The wooden bridge straddling the river was deserted, the last of the tourists already eating dinner at the adjoining restaurant, or away back to their cars.

 

[Ursa major]

The wooden bridge straddling the river was deserted, the last of the tourists already eating dinner at the adjoining restaurant, or away back to their cars.

There seems to be a shortage of verbs. If we replace the first comma with a colon**, we can see where they would go:

The wooden bridge straddling the river was deserted: the last of the tourists were already eating dinner at the adjoining restaurant, or were away back to their cars.

If you want to keep the sentence in one piece, you could try:

The wooden bridge straddling the river was deserted, the last of the tourists having already started eating their dinners at the adjoining restaurant, or returned*** to their cars.

** - A semicolon would also work.

*** - Not knowing the phrase, I'm not sure of which verb goes with away back, so I put in what makes sense to me.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

There seems to be a shortage of verbs. If we replace the first comma with a colon**, we can see where they would go:



If you want to keep the sentence in one piece, you could try:




** - A semicolon would also work.

*** - Not knowing the phrase, I'm not sure of which verb goes with away back, so I put in what makes sense to me.

But there's also a question of whether to change it. There are lots of ways I could turn it into the 'Queen's English' if you like, but my character has a broad Ulster accent and this is closer (I stress that, if I did it in true Belfast it would be much harder to follow again) to how he would say it. I think, to bring the thread back, it's the same with passive; part of it depends on the character and situation?

 

[Ursa major]

I wasn't suggesting you drop the dialect elements, merely that you need to put enough verbs (of your choice) in there to make the sentence work. In your original version, the bit after the first comma doesn't make sense (although it is possible to work out what is meant):

the last of the tourists already eating dinner at the adjoining restaurant, or away back to their cars

A present participle on its own is not a verb.

 

[Jo Zebedee]

I wasn't suggesting you drop the dialect elements, merely that you need to put enough verbs (of your choice) in there to make the sentence work. In your original version, the bit after the first comma doesn't make sense (although it is possible to work out what is meant):

A present participle on its own is not a verb.

I know, I will have to decide at some stage what to do with it. You're right that the verbs aren't right.

 

[The Judge]

Um... I hesitate to disagree with Ursa, but the sentence is fine as it is. There's no need to add a "were [eating]" -- the earlier "was" effectively (if perhaps not wholly grammatically) carrying over for you. The "away back" to my mind is also crystal clear. The only thing I'd change is removing the comma before "or". (That's if the restaurant really does adjoin -- ie abut -- the bridge. If it's merely close by, I'd use "nearby" or some such.)

 

[Erin99]

I like the line, too*. I understood it fine (and I even say "tea", too!). And I'm happy with or without that final comma.




*I don't know if that's because Scots say it up here so I'm now familiar with it, or if I'd ever heard it before I moved here. Either way, I'm used to the wording.

 

[Ursa major]

If the verb is

was
​

the subject of that verb is

The wooden bridge straddling the river
​

isn't it?


If one has a sentence such as

The car drove down the road, across the intersection and** into the rear of a truck
​

that's like saying

The car drove down the road; the car drove across the intersection; the car drove into the rear of a truck.
​

Taking the original sentence, and keeping the original subject-verb pair, cutting up gives:

The wooden bridge straddling the river was deserted; the wooden bridge straddling the river was eating dinner at the adjoining restaurant; the wooden bridge straddling the river was away back to its car.
​

Or am I completely missing the point? (Which, I'm willing to admit, is a definite possibility.)


** - I'm not sure one can use 'or' here, unless one's narrative is trying to capture diverging possibilities.

 

[Erin99]

Gah! I should have been writing, but a friend's just asked me about fixing her PC, so I'm a bit distracted and somehow I saw this. Take my advice with a pinch of salt, but...

"The wooden bridge straddling the river was deserted, the last of the tourists already eating dinner at the adjoining restaurant, or away back to their cars."


The key verb here is "deserted", with "was" being an auxiliary verb: "the bridge was deserted". The clause about the tourists and them eating dinner at the restaurant adjoining the bridge is just going on to say why the bridge was deserted.

That's my take on it, though I'm no linguistic expert... Anyone else have ideas?


Edit: Wait! Isn't that "deserted" actually an adjective??? In which case, "was" is the verb....??? (I hate syntax. Chrispy, where are you???)