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In French, passive voice is used to redirect the spotlight on meaningful bits. In their example & imho, "Phrases in green have been marked to show passive voic

In French, passive voice is used to redirect the spotlight on meaningful bits. In their example & imho, "Phrases in green have been marked to show passive voice." communicates their intent better than "We marked in green phrase using passive voice". The 'we' is useless.

systemvoltage 6y ago
I think both are worse than: "To show passive voice, phrases are marked in green."
- rrose 6y ago
  that is definitely worse than either of the other examples. your version doesn't specify which phrases are marked in green.
  - systemvoltage 6y ago
    You're right. I see the problem :) It is subtle, but nice catch.
treis 6y ago
You can replace "have been" with are in these sorts of cases. So "Phrases in green are marked to show passive voice." Or even shorter "Phrases in green use passive voice".
- Igelau 6y ago
  > Phrases in green are marked to show passive voice. That's still flagged as passive voice by this abomination of an editor. > Phrases in green use passive voice. The meaning of that is less clear than the original. The phrase isn't using anything. We are talking about how it was written: facts about its construction that happened to it. The only way we can do that honestly and concisely is with passive voice because the phrase is only passively involved. Rules like these are toxic nonsense.
- porb121 6y ago
  You've perfectly demonstrated the problem with these kinds of revisions. "Phrases in green use passive voice" removes the passive voice, and in doing so, completely alters the semantic content of the sentence. The passive voice expressed a meaningfully different notion.
dragonwriter 6y ago
> In French, passive voice is used to redirect the spotlight on meaningful bits. True in English, too. It's a common bad-writing problem in English that it is frequently used improperly so that it obscures meaningful bits while being excessively verbose. Thus, common neophyte advice is “avoid passive voice”, and some people get super religious about this without understanding what problem the advice aina to solve.

systemvoltage 6y ago

I think both are worse than: "To show passive voice, phrases are marked in green."

rrose 6y ago
that is definitely worse than either of the other examples. your version doesn't specify which phrases are marked in green.
- systemvoltage 6y ago
  You're right. I see the problem :) It is subtle, but nice catch.

treis 6y ago

You can replace "have been" with are in these sorts of cases. So "Phrases in green are marked to show passive voice." Or even shorter "Phrases in green use passive voice".

Igelau 6y ago
> Phrases in green are marked to show passive voice. That's still flagged as passive voice by this abomination of an editor. > Phrases in green use passive voice. The meaning of that is less clear than the original. The phrase isn't using anything. We are talking about how it was written: facts about its construction that happened to it. The only way we can do that honestly and concisely is with passive voice because the phrase is only passively involved. Rules like these are toxic nonsense.
porb121 6y ago
You've perfectly demonstrated the problem with these kinds of revisions. "Phrases in green use passive voice" removes the passive voice, and in doing so, completely alters the semantic content of the sentence. The passive voice expressed a meaningfully different notion.

dragonwriter 6y ago

> In French, passive voice is used to redirect the spotlight on meaningful bits. True in English, too. It's a common bad-writing problem in English that it is frequently used improperly so that it obscures meaningful bits while being excessively verbose. Thus, common neophyte advice is “avoid passive voice”, and some people get super religious about this without understanding what problem the advice aina to solve.