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I think the general advice in English has been to write in active voice (“the boy hit the ball”) rather than passive (“the ball was hit by the boy.”) As I under

I think the general advice in English has been to write in active voice (“the boy hit the ball”) rather than passive (“the ball was hit by the boy.”) As I understand it: the subject is acting on the object – in that order – instead of the object being acted upon by the subject – again, in that order.

Enginerrrd 3y ago
For what it's worth, I often find myself defending the passive voice in various contexts. I don't know why the Style Tsars decided to hate in that one, but it's really not universally bad.
- sokoloff 3y ago
  Most of my complaints about excessive/inappropriate use of passive voice are when it's used to obscure a point. "It was decided that we'd do XYZ." rather than "Pat decided that we'd do XYZ."
- p0pcult 3y ago
  Mistakes were made.
  - TomDavey 3y ago
    Excellent example! This sentence contains no actor at all, unless the mistakes made themselves.
    - euroderf 3y ago
      A finger pointing into... thin air.