Clarke, you are right to observe there are times when the passive is appropriate. That doesn’t make it any less passive, however! I think the main problem is we have become reflexive about saying “passive = bad writing.” (And also, “bad writing = passive.”) There is some writing that is just bad. And some writing that is passive (and perfectly acceptable.)

If you were writing about the lofty strains and the emotional connection with the tones emanating from a beautiful instrument, it’s entirely appropriate in such a context to say the performance was by Mary Chu. In this case, the artist plays second fiddle to the art (pun intended). I used to play violin, but that was many decades ago. My last violin lessons were over 50 years ago when electronics took a higher priority. But I still have the violin my parents bought me — used and a very long from new — in 1953.

Thanks for your kind words!

Bob, you are quite right. The violin solo was performed by Mary Chu is STILL passive, even though the performer is named. That’s because the subject of the sentence (The violin solo) is not the one performing the verb (which, ironically enough, is “was performed.”) I didn’t want to get into all the details of the passive because my main point was that we can either be grammarians or story-tellers and think it’s a better job to be a story-teller!

Thanks for your “rant,” Clarke! You’re right that the passive is better than the active in SOME cases. For example, it’s better when you want to highlight the RECEIVER of the action rather than the doer. Here’s an evocative sentence by John Steinbeck that illustrates the point: “His pale eyes WERE FROSTED with sun glare and his lips scaly as snakeskin.” Although Steinbeck could have said “The sun’s glare frosted the man’s pale eyes,” using the passive emphasizes the man’s helplessness.

Hi Bob, You’re right that this was an abdication of responsibility rather than passive and that was my point! Editors at the New Yorker, who are notoriously picky, missed this error!

Seems to me it is more a matter of abdication of responsibility than active versus passive voice – “it would end” versus “I would end it”.
But “Madoff said” followed by “As he read this” is rather confusing anyway.

I wonder how she’d fare if called upon to deliver a coherent speech
lasting 15 minutes, with no preparation, and no notes, but being
required to hold an audience’s interest for the entire time. 🙂

I could do that for two hours, no sweat. It’s called “thinking on
your feet”. Useful skill for writing too. Especially when you get
on a roll at times and go for at least an hour or more.

I saw a piece a couple of days ago by Mark Victor Hansen. It was “grammatically correct”, I suppose, but so convoluted in execution that it was very difficult to read. It took more effort to keep track of what had been said already, while putting other pieces of the sentence together in order to assemble his intended thought. It was worse than keeping track of stuff stored in a first-in, last-out, push-down stack in a complex computer program.

[And if you’re curious enough about that to look it up, be my guest. 🙂 The article at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_%28abstract_data_type%29 will make your head hurt —
guaranteed. 🙂 but it makes my point.]

Every writer should become a skilled computer programmer. You learn to
assemble function names with arguments that provide the function with
the data it needs to do its job, then it passes arguments back when it
returns that tell you the results of its action. Plus you learn to do
in a logically smooth way that’s easy to follow, if for no other reason
than two years from now you may have to go back and revise or debug
something, and nothing matches sloppy code for difficulty in such
instances.

I haven’t had an English class since the academic year 1961-62, thank
goodness. I know how to split infinitives correctly and with complete
impudence.

The trouble with these prudes is they’re more interested in showing off
in public than in grabbing people emotionally and getting them involved
enough to shift their perspective in a direction that had not previously
considered.

Imagine the fun I used to have mixing things up on Clayton Makepeace’s
blog back in the good old days.

Bottom line: Prudes drown in the rain from noses stuck in the air.
Commoners have a lot more fun — much of it from poking fun at the
prudes. Maybe that’s why I enjoy the Andy Capp comics, ya’ think?

But I do agree: Passive voice should be scrupulously avoided except in
rare cases where it might be useful, but I can’t think of any examples
right now.

That’s my rant for today. Gotta get some work done. 🙂