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I love how they don't want to bury the lede, but they also will use the passive voice: "after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20%". "some of you will lea
by Graziano_M 3y ago
I love how they don't want to bury the lede, but they also will use the passive voice: "after today Shopify will be smaller by about 20%". "some of you will leave Shopify today". It's not at all that those people are being laid off!
- stickfigure 3y agoThat isn't what passive voice means. From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_voice: For example, in the passive sentence "The tree was pulled down", the subject (the tree) denotes the patient rather than the agent of the action. In contrast, the sentences "Someone pulled down the tree" and "The tree is down" are active sentences.
- shadowvanned 3y agoThanks, E. B. White. The parent poster meant that the tone was passive, and I think everyone understood that.
- stickfigure 3y agoI don't even agree with that point. "Some of you will leave Shopify today" is a lot more blunt than the quasi-euphemistic term "laid off". Someone is really stretching for outrage.
- DeltaCoast 3y agoSomeone else mentioned it's not passive, but a few weeks ago somebody referred to this language as "exonerative tense" which I thought fit well.