27. How to Avoid Passive Verbs

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Passive verbs should not always be avoided, but when necessary the active form of a different verb can often replace one

THE DESIRABILITY OF PASSIVE VERBS

Many English verbs can be made passive. Examples are is understood, was  helped, were being copied, can be taken and should have been known. Passive verbs fundamentally have a “past participle” ending (-ed or irregular equivalent – see 97. Verb Form Confusions), usually after some form of BE. There are, however, a few verbs with this combination that are not true passives (see 207. Exotic Grammar Structures 4, #1).

In some passive verbs, BE is replaced by BECOME or informal GET, e.g. get seen (= make sure people see you). In a few special situations, no BE at all is necessary (see 52. Participles Placed Just after their Noun and 192. When BE can be Omitted). For information about the meaning of passive verbs, see 21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings and 66. Types of Passive Verb Meaning. 

One commonly hears English language advisers (teachers, textbooks, word processors) urging avoidance of passive verbs. Here is an example, from a book by R. Palmer entitled Write in Style: A Guide to Good English (Spon, 1993): 

The Passive:  Avoid unless you have no alternative.  “You should send the premium” is nearly always preferable to “The premium should be sent”, and in at least 90% of cases one can find a way to use the active voice.  However, the passive voice is a wise choice if you are sure the occasion demands delicacy or diplomacy.  (page 156). 

Such a view, I believe, exaggerates the undesirability of passive verbs. The science of linguistics is more positive. It argues that the very existence of passives in English means they must have value, and it makes various observations about what that might be. My own suggestions in this area can be read in the “technical papers” section of this blog under the title Active/Passive Paraphrases in English and What they Mean for Learners (see also 265. Grammar Tools for Better Writing, #5). As a result of such observations, computer advice to avoid particular passives should be treated with scepticism (see 69. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong 2).

Linguists have, however, established that active verbs are much more common in English than passive ones. This suggests there might be some advantage in trying occasionally to avoid the passive voice (for example in paraphrasing – see 80. How to Paraphrase). In this post, I want to indicate some ways of replacing passive verbs with active ones, while also maintaining the proper respect for passive verbs that they deserve.

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THE STANDARD ADVICE ON AVOIDING PASSIVE VERBS

The way grammar books usually say a passive verb can be avoided is with the same verb in its active form, like this: 

(a) (PASSIVE) The package should be sent.

(b) (NO PASSIVE) You should send the package. 

The problem is that using the active voice of the same verb necessitates other changes in the sentence that might not necessarily be desirable. One involves word order: the words the package now end the sentence rather than starting it. This does not seem to be a major change when presented as above, but in a paragraph it can interrupt the flow of reading. Usually, if we choose in a paragraph to begin a sentence with a particular word, we have a reason for doing so, and beginning with a different word will have a different effect (see 156. Mentioning what the Reader Knows Already).

The other change caused by choosing the active voice is the need to introduce you. It may not seem to matter much whether or not you is mentioned, but again there can be very good reasons for not mentioning it. We may wish to sound formal (see 46. How to Avoid “I”, “We” and “You”), or to hide who exactly should do the sending, or simply to be polite.

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A BETTER WAY TO AVOID PASSIVE VERBS

One passive voice alternative that some languages use is the active with the same subject but a -self pronoun as object – e.g. send itself in (a) above. However, English rarely allows this option (see 143. Subtleties of “-self” Words).

The solution that I am sure English writers unconsciously adopt most often is using the active form of a completely different verb. In sentence (a) above, for example, a possible active verb alternative to should be sent is should go. This way of avoiding the passive necessitates no other changes – the word order is the same. A point to note, though, is that such changes from passive to active do slightly affect the meaning: the passive clearly indicates that the subject of the verb has no responsibility for what is being expressed, while the active leaves that a little less certain. However, in many cases this distinction will not matter, and the active will be a perfectly good replacement.

The main problem after deciding to seek an active verb instead of a passive in this way is being able to find one. This is probably easier in some cases than others.

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Active Alternatives to Passives without “by”

Passive verbs without by (which are more common than those with it) seem the easiest to avoid. In sentence (a) above there is no by after should be sent. If the meaning by the customer needed to be expressed, there might be more difficulty thinking of an active alternative to should be sent.

Most active verbs that can replace a passive without by seem to be of the “intransitive” kind – requiring no directly-following noun (“object”) and possessing a passive-like meaning (see 21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings and 113. Verbs That Cannot be Passive). This seems logical: the fact that they lack an object, as passive verbs do, makes the substitution very easy. Other useful verbs like GO above are COME (for verbs like BE BROUGHT), HAPPEN/ OCCUR/ TAKE PLACE (= BE ARRANGED), STAND (= BE LOCATED), DISAPPEAR (= BE REMOVED) and STAY (= BE KEPT). For more on TAKE PLACE, see 132. Tricky Word Contrasts 4, #1.

However, not all verbs replacing a passive without by lack an object. For example, will be considered can become needs consideration (see 219. Wording next to Indirect Questions, #1).

Passives without by can also be avoided with the verb BE alone, followed by a noun or an adjective, like this: 

(c) (PASSIVE) The feast was celebrated annually.

(d) (ACTIVE) The feast occurred annually.

(e) (BE + NOUN) The feast was an annual celebration/occurrence. 

Grammar books rarely, if ever, mention the verb BE when giving advice about avoiding passive verbs, and yet it is very useful. Here is another example: 

(f) (PASSIVE) Tobacco was introduced from America.

(g) (ACTIVE) Tobacco came first from America.

(h) (BE + NOUN) Tobacco was originally an import from America. 

Some nouns and adjectives are common passive-avoiding partners of BE. Celebration and occurrence in (e) are examples of “action” nouns, which are often surprisingly similar to passive verbs (see 131. Uses of Action” Nouns, #4).

Adjectives with -ible or -able, such as arguable and divisible (see 304. Adjectives Made from a Verb, #4) usually correspond to passive verbs with can. The ending means can be, the rest the -ed form of the related verb (see 298. Grammar Meanings without Grammar, #6). For example, is divisible means “can be divided”. Possible can replace can be done. A pitfall to beware of with -able/-ible adjectives, however, is that some have unexpected meaning (see 284. Words with a Surprising Meaning, #1, #2 and #11).

In addition, there + BE can often replace a passive verb with an indefinite subject noun (i.e. without the – see 161. Special Uses of “There” Sentences, #1). For example, if (c) concerned a feast instead of the feast, we could say There was an annual feast.

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Active Alternatives to Passives with “by”

The easiest passives with by to avoid have a verb that can just be made active without requiring the rest of the sentence to be reordered:

(i) (PASSIVE) Obesity is increased by overeating.

(j) (ACTIVE)  Obesity increases with overeating. 

The only other visible difference with such changes is that a preposition other than by is needed. Once again the two sentences are not exactly synonymous, but in most cases the difference will not be important.

Plenty of passive verbs, but by no means all, can be avoided in the same way as is increased. However, there is no sure rule for recognising them: to avoid errors, you need to discover and memorise each one individually (see 142. Grammar Errors with Passive Verbs). Other common ones are CHANGE, DEVELOP, BEGIN, STOP, OPEN and MOVE (for more, see 4. Verbs that don’t Have to be Passive). All are useful for avoiding passives without by as well as those with it. 

When a passive verb with by cannot be avoided with a verb like INCREASE, more effort is needed to find an alternative – but quite often one exists. It will again tend to be intransitive, so that it will need a preposition – different from by – before the subsequent noun. Examples are:

BE OWNED BY – BELONG TO
BE LIKED BY – APPEAL TO
BE PUT UP BY – STAY WITH
BE BEATEN (in a game) BY – LOSE TO
BE MANAGED BY – REPORT TO
BE LENT … BY – BORROW … FROM
BE TOLD BY – HEAR/ GATHER/ UNDERSTAND FROM
BE HIT BY – TAKE A BLOW FROM

A few passives with by can be avoided with an active verb that needs no following preposition. Examples are BE CONTROLLED BY (= OBEY) and BE OCCUPIED BY (= CONTAIN). Active verbs with a passive meaning – HAVE, RECEIVE, SUFFER etc. (see 21. Active Verbs with Non-Active Meanings) – can be especially useful here.

Many other by passives are avoidable with BE: …is possessed by… corresponds to there is…in… (see 161. Special Uses of “There” Sentences). Other examples are BE ENJOYED BY (= BE enjoyable for) and BE SOLD BY (= BE on sale at).

Now here is an exercise through which finding active verb alternatives to passives may be practised.

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PRACTICE EXERCISE: PASSIVE VERB REPLACEMENT

Choose an active verb from the following list that could (when adjusted for tense and agreement) best replace the passive verb (underlined) in each sentence below. Answers are given afterwards.

RESULT FROM,  AFFLICT,  PRECEDE,  APPEAL TO,  LOSE TO,  DEPEND ON,  SEEK,  USE,  BELONG TO,  DIE FROM.

1. Shopping is liked by most women.

2. Most plants are killed by a lack of water.

3. Illness is suffered by all human beings.

4. Most cars are propelled by fossil fuels.

5. Insects are often attracted by honey.

6. Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide.

7. The air is owned by everybody.

8. Hard work is not always followed by success.

9. The Dutch football team were beaten by Spain in the World Cup.

10. Young children are looked after by adults.

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Answers 

1 = appeals to;  2 = die from;  3 = afflicts;  4 = use;  5 = seek;  6 = results from;  7 = belongs to;  8 = does not … precede;  9 = lost to;  10 = depend on.

26. One Word or Two?

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There are some rules for joining two different words into one, but they do not cover all cases

AREAS OF UNCERTAINTY ABOUT JOINING WORDS TOGETHER

Is it correct to write bath tub, or should it be the single word bathtub? Is every day a correct spelling, or everyday? Uncertainties like this are widespread in English, even among proficient users. They are made worse by the fact that in some cases both spellings are correct, but mean different things.

Are there any guidelines for resolving such uncertainties? It seems that in some cases there are and in some there are not. I wish here to indicate some of these guidelines. They mostly involve combinations that can make either one word or two, depending on meaning or grammar.

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ORDINARY COMPOUNDS

Ordinary compounds are the area with the fewest guidelines. They include words like coursework, which I like to write as a single word but my Microsoft Word spellchecker tells me should be two. As a linguist, I usually disregard computer advice about language (see 68. How Computers Get Grammar Wrong), but the question of why ordinary compound words give especial problems is interesting. First, these words need to be defined.

One can think of a compound as two or more words joined together. Linguists, though, like to speak of joined roots or stems rather than words, partly because the joining into a compound stops them being words (a few are not even words by themselves, e.g. horti- in horticulture).

Another problem with “joined words” is that some, such as fearless, are not considered compounds at all. The -less ending is called not a “root” but an “affix”, a meaningful word part added to a root to modify its meaning. Most affixes (some named suffixes, e.g. -less, -ness, -tion, -ly, -ing; some prefixes, e.g. -un-, in-, mis-, pre-) cannot be separate words, but a few like -less can (see 106. Word-Like Suffixes and 146. Some Important Prefix Types). Thus, words like fearless, unhappy and international are not compounds because they have fewer than two roots. Other compounds are swimsuit, homework and eavesdrop.

Suggestions for recognising a compound are not always very helpful. The frequency of words occurring together is no guide because it ignores the fact that many frequent combinations are not compounds (e.g. town hall and open air). The grammatical classes of the words and the closeness of the link between them are sometimes mentioned, but are unreliable. The age of a combination is also suggested, the claim being that compounds originate as two separate words, and gradually evolve through constant use first into hyphenated expressions (like fire-eater or speed-read – see 223. Uses of Hyphens), and eventually into compounds. However, some quite recent words are already compounds, such as bitmap in computing.

Much more useful is the way compounds are pronounced. Single English words generally contain one syllable that is pronounced more strongly than the others (see 125. Stress and Emphasis). This means compounds should have just one strong syllable, while non-compounds should have more. The rule applies fairly universally (see 243. Pronunciation Secrets, #3). For example, home is the only strong syllable in homework, but one of two in home rule. I write coursework as one word because course- is stronger than work.

The only problem with this approach is that you have to know pronunciations before you start, which is not always the case if English is not your mother tongue. The only other resort is a dictionary or spellcheck!

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NOUNS DERIVED FROM PHRASAL VERBS

Happily, some compound words have some other helpful features. Most are words whose roots, if written as two words, are also correct but have different meaning and grammar, so that the meaning indicates the spelling or vice versa. A particularly large category of such words is illustrated by the compound noun giveaway (= “obvious clue”). If its two roots are written separately as give away, they become a “phrasal” verb – a combination of a simple English verb (give) with a small adverb (away) – meaning “unintentionally reveal” (see 244. Special Uses of GIVE, #12).

There are many other nouns that can become phrasal verbs, e.g. takeover, takeaway, makeup, cutoff, breakout, setdown, pickup, washout, login and stopover. In writing there is always a need to remember that, if the two “words” are going to act as a verb, they must be spelled separately, but if they are going to act as a noun, they must be written together.

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OTHER CHOICES THAT DEPEND ON WORD CLASS

In the examples above, it is the choice between noun and verb uses that determines the spelling. Other grammatical choices can have this effect too. The two alternative spellings mentioned earlier, every day and everyday, are an example. The first (with ev- and day said equally strongly) acts in sentences like a noun or adverb, the second (with ev- the strongest) like an adjective. Compare: 

(a) NOUN: Every day is different.

(b) ADVERB: Dentists recommend cleaning your teeth every day.

(c) ADJECTIVE: Everyday necessities are expensive. 

In (a), every day is noun-like because it is the subject of the verb is (for details of subjects, see 12. Singular and Plural Verb Choices). In (b), the same words act like an adverb, because they give more information about a verb (cleaning) and could easily be replaced by a more familiar adverb like regularly or thoroughly (see 120. Six Things to Know about Adverbs). In (c), the single word everyday appears before a noun (necessities), giving information about it just as any adjective might (see 109. Placing an Adjective after its Noun). It is easily replaced by a more recognizable adjective like regular or daily. For more about every, see 169. “All”, “Each” and “Every”.

Another example of a noun/adverb contrast is any more (as in …cannot pay any more) versus anymore (…cannot pay anymore). In the first, any more is the object of pay and means “more than this amount”, while in the second anymore is not the object of pay (we have to understand something like money instead), and has the adverb meaning “for a longer time”.

A further adverb/adjective contrast is on board versus onboard. I once saw an aeroplane advertisement wrongly saying *available onboard – using an adjective to do an adverb job. The adverb on board is needed because it “describes” an adjective (available). The adjective form cannot be used because there is no noun to describe (see 6. Adjectives with no Noun 1). A correct adjective use would be onboard availability.

Slightly different is alright versus all right. The single word is either an adjective meaning “acceptable” or “undamaged”, as in The system is alright, or an adverb meaning “acceptably”, as in The system works alright. The two words all right, on the other hand, are only an adjective, different in meaning from the adjective alright: they mean “100% correct”. Thus, Your answers are all right means that there are no wrong answers, whereas Your answers are alright means that the answers are acceptable, without indicating how many are right.

Consider also upstairs and up stairs. The single word could be either an adjective (the upstairs room) or an adverb (go upstairs) or a noun (the upstairs). It refers essentially to “the floor above”, without necessarily implying the presence of stairs at all – one could, for example, go upstairs in a lift (see 154. Lone Prepositions after BE). The separated words, by contrast, act only like an adverb and do mean literally “by using stairs” (see 218. Tricky Word Contrasts 8, #3).

The pair may be and maybe illustrates a verb and adverb use:

(d) VERB: Food prices may be higher.

(e) ADVERB: Food prices are maybe higher.

In (e), the verb is are. The adverb maybe, which modifies its meaning, could be replaced by perhaps or possibly. Indeed, in formal writing it should be so replaced because maybe is conversational (see 108. Formal and Informal Words).

My final example is some times and sometimes, noun and adverb:

(f) NOUN: Some times are harder than others.

(g) ADVERB: Sometimes life is harder than at other times. 

Again, replacement is a useful separation strategy. The noun times, the subject of are in (f), can be replaced by a more familiar noun like days without radically altering the sentence, while the adverb sometimes in (g) corresponds to occasionally, the subject of is being the noun life.

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USES INVOLVING “some”, “any”, “every” AND “no”

The words some, any, every and no generally do not make compounds, but can go before practically any noun to make a “noun phrase”. In a few cases, however, this trend is broken and these words must combine with the word after them to form a compound. Occasionally there is even a choice between using one word or two, depending on meaning.

The compulsory some compounds are somehow, somewhere and somewhat; the any compounds are anyhow and anywhere, while every and no make everywhere and nowhere. There is a simple observation that may help these compounds to be remembered: the part after some/any/every/no is not a noun, as is usually required, but a question word instead. The rule is thus that if a combination starting with some, any, every or no lacks a noun, a single word must be written.

The combinations that can be one word or two depending on meaning are someone, somebody, something, sometime, sometimes, anyone, anybody, anything, anyway (Americans might add anytime and anyplace), everyone, everybody, everything, everyday, no-one, nobody and nothing. The endings in these words (-one, -body, -thing, -way, -time, -place and –day) are noun-like and mean the same as question words (who? what/which? how? when? and where? – see 185. Noun Synonyms of Question Words).

Some (tentative) meaning differences associated with these alternative spellings are as follows: 

SOME TIME = “an amount of time”

Please give me some time.

SOMETIME (adj.) = “past; old; erstwhile”

I met a sometime colleague

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SOMETHING = “an object whose exact nature is unimportant”.

SOME THING = “a nasty creature whose exact nature is unknown” (see 260. Formal Written Uses of “Thing”, #2).

Some thing was lurking in the water.

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ANYONE/ANYBODY = “one or more people; it is unimportant who”

Anyone can come = Whoever wants to come is welcome; Choose anyone = Choose whoever you want – one or more people.

ANY ONE = “any single person/thing out of a group of possibilities”.

Any one can come = Only one person/thing (freely chosen) can come; Choose any one = Choose whoever/whichever you want, but only one.

ANY BODY = “any single body belonging to a living or dead creature”.

Any body is suitable = I will accept whatever body is available.

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ANYTHING = “whatever (non-human) is conceivable/possible, without limit”.

Bring anything you like = There is no limit in what you can bring; Anything can happen = There is no limit on possible happenings.

ANY THING = “any single non-human entity in a set”.

Choose any thing = Freely choose one of the things in front of you.

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EVERYONE/EVERYBODY = “all people” (see 169. “All”, “Each” and “Every” and 211.General Words for People).

Everyone/Everybody is welcome.

EVERY ONE = “all members of a previously-mentioned group of at least three things (not people)”.

Diamonds are popular. Every one sells easily.

EVERY BODY = “all individual bodies without exceptions”.

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EVERYTHING = “all things/aspects/ideas”.

Everything is clear.

EVERY THING = “all individual objects, emphasising lack of exceptions”.

Every thing on display was a gift.

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NO-ONE/NOBODY = “no people”

No-one/Nobody came.

NO ONE = “not a single” (+ noun)

No one answer is right.

NO BODY = “no individual body”.

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NOTHING = “zero”.

Nothing is impossible.

NO THING = “no individual object”. 

There are other problem combinations besides those discussed here; hopefully these examples will make them easier to deal with.