Thanks, bookmarked. I have never understood this weird and continuing tantrum on passive voice. It seems to be specific to English too.
treetalker•2w ago
Consider this restatement: The link has been bookmarked, the passive voice is continuously complained about, and that continuous tantrum has never been understood.
Each assertion is somewhat accurate in a global sense, and somewhat accurate of parent commenter specifically. But each is also somewhat inaccurate and/or somewhat unsupported.
Who took these actions? We can presume that parent commenter bookmarked the link for themself, and we might even presume that others have bookmarked the link for themselves too; or maybe someone else bookmarked the link for parent commenter's benefit! It may be that parent commenter has never understood the tantrum, but has the tantrum never been understood? Is the tantrum continuous? For whom, and in what sense?
The passive has its place to achieve desired effects — primarily the shading of vagueness and ambiguity. But many assert that the default should be the active voice, presumably out of the belief that greater specificity usually provides greater social value and/or constitutes better expository expression.
Regarding its being specific to English, I'm reminded of the "gossip" tense in Turkish (and, as I understand, in Tajik and other languages too), which I learned about from a comment on HN a day or two ago.
jruohonen•2w ago
treetalker•2w ago
Each assertion is somewhat accurate in a global sense, and somewhat accurate of parent commenter specifically. But each is also somewhat inaccurate and/or somewhat unsupported.
Who took these actions? We can presume that parent commenter bookmarked the link for themself, and we might even presume that others have bookmarked the link for themselves too; or maybe someone else bookmarked the link for parent commenter's benefit! It may be that parent commenter has never understood the tantrum, but has the tantrum never been understood? Is the tantrum continuous? For whom, and in what sense?
The passive has its place to achieve desired effects — primarily the shading of vagueness and ambiguity. But many assert that the default should be the active voice, presumably out of the belief that greater specificity usually provides greater social value and/or constitutes better expository expression.
Regarding its being specific to English, I'm reminded of the "gossip" tense in Turkish (and, as I understand, in Tajik and other languages too), which I learned about from a comment on HN a day or two ago.