Subject: The Princess & The Be
From: Scottie Bowman (rbowman@indigo.ie)
Date: Fri Jan 05 2001 - 14:24:38 GMT
'... hammered for using the passive voice, as it uses some
form of the verb "to be" in nearly every sentence ...'
'... That's my definition, anyway ...'
I'll be interested to hear how many of your compatriots
share it. I can't find anything remotely like it under
'Passive Voice' in any of my English (UK) authorities -
Fowler, Gowers, Oxf. Companion., etc. (Though in
the last, Tom McArthur takes a nice little swipe when
he suggests a horror of the passive seems especially strong
with 'Americans & computer style-checkers ....')
*I* think when we start twitching about 'to be' we're moving
towards the phobic - not to say fetishistic.
Scottie B.
-
* Unsubscribing? Mail majordomo@roughdraft.org with the message
* UNSUBSCRIBE BANANAFISH
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Wed Feb 21 2001 - 09:44:22 GMT