I agree with Michael Perry in thinkig it obvious that Strunk and White were not confusing active and passive voice. Do they specify that passive sentences could be improved by making them active? No; they specifiy that a TAME sentence is often improved. Any misinterpretation of the examples that follow are from the reader’s own misunderstanding of the difference between a passive sentence and a tame sentence, or the between a passive sentence and an active one.

“It’s quite obvious that Struck and White are NOT introducing those four examples as illustrations of passive voice. They’re expanding their previous remarks about using the active voice instead of the passive to an additional category of sentences. They are referring to “a tame sentence” in which “a transitive in the active voice” can also improve “perfunctory expressions as ‘there is’ or ‘could be heard.’” Tame and perfunctory are not the same as passive.”

I absolutely disagree. What is the evidence for this interpretation of their intent? If Strunk and White wanted to redefine the meaning of active and passive voice–concepts with a clear and established meaning–they should have clarified that intent explicitly.

The fact that they didn’t is poor communication at best–something their book was intended to prevent!–and misunderstanding of the concepts themselves at worst. Pullum’s contends they misunderstand and misapply the active/passive concept, and rightly so.

Indeed, there is a vast difference between tame or limp versus forceful sentences. Strunk and White confuse this difference for active versus passive voice. Readers shouldn’t, and they are misled by these false pillars of grammar.

Furthermore, if Stunk and White wanted to include grammar advice, they should have titled the book more broadly, like “Elements of English Composition” or something similarly descriptive.

In response to Paul: (“I really wonder about creative writing rules at times.”) I think most of these are just suggestions (especially for writers who are beginning), general guidelines that usually make things better. Some creative writing “rules” are not rules at all, but we take them that way.

Like I said, great comments! I like this site a lot.

I really wonder about creative writing rules at times.

Actually, it’s not “quite obvious.” Look closely at the passage cited:

“The habitual use of the active voice, however, makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in the narrative concerned primarily with action but in writing of any kind. Many a tame sentence of description or exposition can be made lively and emphatic by substituting a transitive in the active voice for some such perfunctory expressions as ‘there is’ or ‘could be heard’”

This passage directly says that “the habitual use of the active voice… makes for forcible writing.” It does not say: *certain* uses of the active voice make for forcible writing; instead, it implies that the active voice itself is responsible for forcible writing, presumably in all or most cases (unless we are later told otherwise).

Then, we are told that we can substitute a “transitive in the active voice” in the examples that follow. We are not told that we can substitute a transitive in the active voice for ANOTHER active voice phrase, even though that is actually what’s going on in the examples. Since we were told that the active voice makes forceful writing, we might reasonably conclude that the sentences to be corrected did not employ the active voice.

A reader who already knows grammatical terminology will realize that the third sentence is limiting the first. But someone who doesn’t know grammatical terminology and its applications very well would assume that a paragraph which is endorsing the active voice and encouraging a substitution of a “transitive in the active voice” would probably be correcting examples that are NOT in the active voice. An uneducated reader wouldn’t necessarily realize, given the way this paragraph is written, that there are actually good and bad examples of active voice usage. Nor would they realize that some of the examples following a paragraph endorsing the “active voice” and “substitutions” involving it are actually ALREADY in the active voice.

In sum, the paragraph cited is completely unclear about the status of these examples. The professor is wrong to say that Strunk & White think they are passive, but the comments here are wrong to claim that the passage couldn’t be interpreted that way for an uneducated reader. The professor may have no excuse, but is his reading “demonstrably incorrect”? Only by assuming facts not in evidence. You can’t prove that S&W understood what passive means on the basis of the quoted paragraph, anymore than the professor can prove that they thought their examples were in the passive voice.

And clearly, on the basis of the nonsense I’ve seen identified as “passive voice,” quite a few other people have interpreted the passage the way the professor does.