What is called the evasive passive. And accordingly, all the classic style guides advice against using the passive voice. Use the active voice. The active voice is usually more direct and vigorous than the passive. Many sentences can be made lively by substituting a transgent for a per puncher to perfunctory. Notice something fishingal the advice . It uses the passive voice to tell people not to use the passive voice. Similarly, the other iconic body of advice for writing happed out to every college freshman, George Orwells politics of the english language in which he says a mixture of vague yes and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern prose. I list the way that prose construction is dodged. The passive voice is used in preference to the active which contains not one but two examples of the passive voice. Now, the passive voice, and, for that matter, any english construction could not have survived in the language for 1500 years unless it was doing something u
0 and under his leadership, i hope with eric cantor and others we can fix it. brian: there are some conservatives in congress who are angry at the speaker for the plan b thing, for the fiscal cliff, for because nobody wanted to raise taxes on anybody. but ultimately at the end of the day they had to do that. steve: let s face it. john boehner played the hand he has been dealt. ever since the november election he s had a lousy hand. he has not had an easy time of it. who would want that job to try to rangel all of the competing opinions in your party together? it s been very challenging for him. brian: you get a huge office and you get a big balcony so that is one of the huge advantages as opposed to a normal congressman. it is going to get easier for speaker boehner because he will not having looming tax cuts. in with two months when they have to revisit the fiscal cliff and then they have the debt ceiling because the $24 billion will run out and sequester could kick in, there i