I teach a freshman writing seminar, and one of the most consistent ticks of crappy undergraduate writers is their love of the passive voice. They love it. It is loved by them. When I try to beat it out of them, they sometimes complain that their high-school English teachers taught them to use it, because it sounds more "objective." (Huh? Were their English teachers fooled by the presence of an unneeded auxiliary verb into thinking that they weren't reading the opinions of whoever wrote the paper? That instead, they held in their hands nothing less than The Truth, as spoken by God Himself? Whatever.) The point is, ass is sucked by the passive voice.
And yet it has its uses, doesn't it? All you have to do is drop that incriminating prepositional phrase and shit just happens without anyone ever doing it! Remember Reagan's "mistakes were made"? Awesome, to be sure, but not as personal as this little gem you might remember from 11th grade: "I'm sorry you were hurt."
Well, here's some sweet, sweet passive voice, served up just like it was outside the gym on the night of your junior formal:
I regret to inform you that you have not been chosen as a final candidate for the position of Assistant Professor in Philosophy. . . .
Holy crap! You didn't get chosen! How did that happen? We just showed up Monday morning and found your file in the recycle bin. Really sorry about that. . . .
Stay tuned, as I bring you more choice selections from my thick, thick--thick--stack of rejection letters.
2 comments:
Aaagh. As a writer of rejection letters (it's true, I'm one of them, though to your good fortunes I'm not a philosopher), I recently took the template and changed it from saying, "we're not able to accept your work at this time" to "we're not accepting your work at this time." For although the passive voice wasn't in there, it's a load of crap to tell someone they're being rejected because of some inability on our end. No, we're simply choosing to reject their work.
Thanks not just from me Anon., but from all your rejectees. I like to think they appreciate your taking responsibity for those decisions. I know I appreciate it.
Post a Comment