21st Century Grammar Handbook (25 page)

A universal rule of
usage
and
grammar
books is that the passive should not be overused or should be avoided altogether. The thinking behind this
rule
is that passives are
less forceful because action is indirect, because subject and agent are not as closely and clearly connected as in the “normar” sentence pattern (active: subject, verb, object), and because many passive sentences together create an impression of inaction or blandness. Such thinking is justified to some degree, although the “rule” itself should not be overused any more than passive voice should. There are places and moments for passive constructions—for
emphasis,
variety of word order, and intentional removal or obscuring of a sentence’s agent or subject.

Although passive is seen as less forceful inherently, the appearance of a passive
sentence
or group of passive sentences in an otherwise quite actively voiced document can call attention to the shift in
voice
and thereby to the message or point of the sentences constructed in the passive. Not much can be made of such
emphasis,
since the device used to stress something naturally is weak, less clear, and, in a word, passive.

Changing word order and gaining variety through occasional use of the passive can help a document full of simple, direct, active statements. Again, the change is not particularly forceful by nature, but it is there as a device. See
order of words.

When it is not important to make clear who is acting or if there is a good reason to obscure the active agent in a sentence, the passive works well. That is why so much government documentation, political
rhetoric,
and advertising is couched in the passive. If no active party is evident, no one can be blamed, held to promises, or made accountable for claims. Advertising sometimes takes the simpler path of omitting the subject: “Improved!”

If any of these considerations lead you to use the passive, make sure during your
editing, revision,
and proofreading cycles to avoid too much passive voice. Also take care to observe all the
rules
and requirements of
agreement
and consistency. Longer passive constructions naturally make
subject, verb,
and agent somewhat remote from one another, thereby enhancing the possibility that you will lose sight of the
number
or
person
with which the verb must agree. This is particularly true if the verb and prepositional agent phrase are close together while the subject is fairly far away. Then writers tend to make the verb agree with the number and person of the agent rather than the true subject of the sentence. WRONG: “The apple, fallen from a tree that stood for eons in the farmer’s yard, were eaten by the hogs.” RIGHT: “The apple … was eaten by….”

Consistency should be maintained by making all
clauses
in a sentence either
active
or passive but not mixing
voices
in the same sentence. This is particularly true when a series of more than two clauses is joined together. WRONG: “The dog barks loudly, the cow stumbles toward the
meadow, and the pig is herded toward the pen by the farmhand.”* RIGHT: “The dog … and the farmhand herds the pig toward the pen.”

Past tense.
Verbs
indicate the time of the actions or conditions they depict by changing forms. Actions or conditions that took place before now or in the time the speaker or writer assumes to be now are said to be in the past and are depicted by the past tense. Most verbs form their past tenses by adding “d” or “ed” to their main forms: “walk, walked” “type, typed” “cook, cooked.” But there are many verbs that change shape in the past and other forms irregularly. See the entry on
irregular verbs
and the individual entries for those verbs, which provide more details on how they are formed and used. Also see the entry on
tenses
for the more elaborately formed and less commonly used variants on the simple past tense.

Pay, paid, paid.
An
irregular verb
in its main,
past tense,
and past
participle
forms.

Percent.
The word “percent” can also be represented by the
symbol
%. In most
standard English
writing that is not highly mathematical, scientific, or commercial, the word is spelled out instead of using the symbol. In tables and other places where space is limited, the symbol can appear rather than the word.

Period.
The
punctuation
mark that ends most sentences is the period (.).
Question marks
and
exclamation points
can also end sentences, and any ending punctuation can be
enclosed in quotes,
parentheses,
or
brackets:
“Here is an example.” The example could have been enclosed in parentheses or brackets as well as quotes, and (at least in theory) the
sentence
could have been construed as a
question
or command ending appropriately.

Periods are also used to mark the ends of most
abbreviations:
“The philosopher received the Ph.D. degree with honors.” Some styles reduce or eliminate periods after abbreviations: “The stockbroker arrived at 6 am, and went home at 7 pm.”

Ellipses
are strings of periods used to indicate that words have been dropped from a statement, particularly a quoted passage: “The chairperson stated, The budget must be examined … and profits must rise.” Three ellipses points indicate words dropped within a sentence, and four appear at the end of a sentence to show continuation (unless the shortened passage ends with other punctuation: “What are the consequences of using the active voice, the passive voice, and …?”).

Periods never fall outside quotation marks as the final punctuation of a sentence. WRONG: “Here is an example”. Such punctuation is used only in
British English
and is not the right way to indicate that a quoted passage ends with other punctuation in the source even though you have chosen to end the statement at the point shown. If such specificity is necessary, you can indicate source ending punctuation with ellipses and brackets, still followed by period and quotes: “Kennedy said, ‘Ask not what you can do for your country […].’” If the ellipses and brackets were not used in this sentence, it would properly end as: “… your country.” The period is inside all quotes.

Periods can come outside brackets (as shown in the preceding examples) or parentheses when a full sentence is not set off parenthetically: “The poet wrote an ode (I can’t remember the title).” Even though the parenthetical expression is a whole sentence, it does not end in a period, while the full sentence ends after the parenthetical expression and therefore does show a period. Full sentences within parentheses and not contained within other sentences end with periods inside the parentheses: “(The ode is called To a Sparrow.)” Note that the period in this case is inside the single quote mark as well.

Person,
Person is a grammatical category that indicates whether a
noun
or
pronoun
defines the stance of “I,”
“you,”
or “the other.” That is,
first-person
words refer to the self as a
subject, object,
or in other grammatical roles: “I speak clearly.” “It is given to me.” “She handed the book to me.” “We like it.” “It pleases him.” The pronouns “I, me,” and “me, us” in these examples are all first person, singular and
plural.
Second person
is always indicated by “you” in all
numbers
and
cases.
All the other pronouns are the person of the other,
third person:
“It, it” “he, him” “she, her” and “they, them.”

Verbs
and other pronouns must agree in number and person with the pronouns they modify, refer to, or portray action for. First-person plural subjects take first-person plural verbs, which may have different forms than, say, first-person singular or third-person plural verbs. See
agreement, conjugation, irregular verbs,
and
number.

Consistency of person from
clause
to clause in a sentence helps a reader follow your thinking, while changes of
person can confuse. WRONG: “We play in the fields, and I enjoy it.” The sentence is potentially confusing because the reader does not know how the others feel about play or the field, or why they were brought into the sentence in the first place if the point is “I’s” feelings. Better to write: “I played in the field with them, and I enjoyed it.” This sentence is still somewhat misleading in that the reader doesn’t know how “they” felt about things, but it seems clearer that the statement is focused on “I” and not “they.” Therefore the absence of information on “they’s” feelings is not so striking.

Personal pronoun.
The following words are called personal pronouns because they indicate people: I,
you, he, she, it, we,
and
they.
Each of them has a separate entry that explains the rules and nuances of their use, gives examples of poor and good
usage,
and refers to other entries with important information. See also
pronouns, case, number,
and
agreement.

Ph.D.
The
abbreviation
for the academic doctoral degree is “Ph.D.” When names include the abbreviation (which follows the name and is set off by commas), they do not need any other honorific (such as Dr., Mr., Ms., etc.): “They honored Sally Fay, Ph.D., and her achievements in executive education. Ms. Fay could not accept the award in person.”

Phrase.
Phrases are groups of words that do not have
subjects, verbs,
or
objects
or
subject complements
but stand in place of or add meaning to those elements of sentences.

Phrases can function as various
parts of speech: adjectives, adverbs, nouns,
and verbs. In those functions phrases obey all the
rules
that apply to the
parts of speech,
though they may not change form or act in precisely the same way as one-word or simple parts of speech. That is, a verb may change form to agree in
number
or
person
with its subject, while a verbal phrase might not alter in any way or in the same way: “He is here, and they are here.” The verb changes (is conjugated) to reflect subjects different in person and number. But: “The photographer sees the sleeping gorilla and six sleeping cheetahs.” The verbal phrases “sleeping gorilla” and “six sleeping cheetahs” show no alteration in the adjectival form for singular or
plural.
See
agreement
and
conjugation.

Phrases equal the noun, verb,
preposition, participle,
or other part of speech at their core plus any
modifiers, auxiliaries,
or supplemental words that are part of them: “To reach the farmer, the apparent victim, the car had driven to the red barn standing on the sloping hill above the house in the hollow.” The phrases (and their types and functions) in this artificially complex example are the following:

The position and function of phrases in sentences dictate their
punctuation: Appositives
are set off with
commas;
longer introductory phrases of any kind are followed by commas before the main clauses of sentences;
nonrestrictive phrases
are set off with commas.

The entries for each part of speech contain more information on how they work and the rules that apply to them and equally to phrases.

Plural.
Nouns
that represent more than one thing or person are said to be plural, as are the
verbs
and
pronouns
that agree with them: “Dogs chew their bones” (see
agreement).
All the words in the example are plural. From the example it is clear that nouns form their plurals by adding “s,” while verbs drop “s” in their third-person
present tense
forms: (“the dog chews,” but “the dogs chew”). Plural pronouns (like “their” in the example) usually have distinct forms for plurals. See
collective pronouns, number, irregular verbs,
and
possessives.

P.M.
The
abbreviation
“P.M
.” stands for the
Latin
words “
post meridiem
” and means the time from noon to midnight: “I’ll meet you at 8
P.M
.” The abbreviation is normally
capitalized
or appears as small capital letters where this is typographically possible. When you use
“P.M
.,” do not add “o’clock” or such phrases as “in the afternoon.” See also
A.M.

Possessive.
The inflected form of a
noun
or
pronoun
that indicates possession or ownership of something is called the “possessive”: “This is my house and Spot’s playground.” “My” and “Spot’s” are in the possessive
(case).
See
inflection.