Passive Voice

Geoffery Pullum has written an article titled "Fear and Loathing of the English Passive ." Pullum's article abstract notes "I provide an informal but comprehensive syntactic description of passive clauses in English, and then exhibit numerous published examples of incompetent criticism in which critics reveal that they cannot tell passives from actives. Some seem to confuse the grammatical concept with a rhetorical one involving inadequate attribution of agency or responsibility, but not all examples are thus explained. The specific stylistic charges leveled against the passive are entirely baseless."

I confess I need to read this article in full: however, from just glancing at a few examples this appears to be a vigorous essay.

-DD