Passive restraint

Want to make your writing more interesting, and draw your readers into the action? Avoid the passive voice, at least most of the time. Use the active voice instead.

Which sentence would you rather read?

Passive voice: A long pass was launched toward the end zone by quarterback Tom Brady.

Active voice: Quarterback Tom Brady launched a long pass toward the end zone.

I chose the football example deliberately. Sportswriters almost never use the passive voice, which usually makes for pretty dull prose. No sportswriter can afford to be dull. Publisher, author and editor Nick Lyons would sometimes tell me jokingly: “The passive voice is liked by this author a lot.” If I was editing the book in question, he would invariably instruct me to extirpate the passive voice almost everywhere it reared its ugly head.

Is the passive voice always bad? No. If the subject is more important than the action, or if the performer of the action is unstated, the passive voice is fine—especially in a brief sentence:

The treasure ship was discovered in 1985.

But if you’re going to specify who discovered the ship, or include other details, it’s better to use the active voice:

Salvage diver Mel Fisher discovered the treasure ship off Key West in 1985.

Strictly speaking, the passive voice isn’t exactly wrong, but it’s not very interesting, either. In a long sentence, the passive voice can sound ridiculously dull and convoluted. The longer and more detailed the sentence, the worse it gets:

An enthusiastic group of NRA leaders in Phoenix was spoken before by personal development expert Marsha Petrie Sue.

Naturally, a good editor (or better yet, a conscious writer) will choose to go active:

Personal development expert Marsha Petrie Sue spoke before an enthusiastic group of NRA leaders in Phoenix.

Keep your writing as active as your lifestyle. Use passive restraint. When the passive voice is used too much by this writer, his readers get put to sleep by him.

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. After we had conquered the mountain, we got off the horses and lead them down a steep tallow slope.

4. She was a gorgeous, elegant lady and reminded him of a movie star, like Marilyn Monrow swan eye in a platinum mink stole.

3. Every week, the Spotlight shits on a different member and highlights their professional accompaniments.

2. Navigating the river and knowing which stretches the fish prefer along with knowledge of subtle nuisances in drift and presentation really make a guide on the Cumberland one of the best investments you can ever make.

1. During the First World War, troops from the Royal Norfolk Regiment were fighting the Turks in Dardanelles, France, when witnesses reported seeing several strange clouds hovering above the battlefield, unaffected by the day’s strong winds.

Here are the answers to last week’s editing follies:

5. The sun began its slow but steady ascent into the cloudless, azure blue sky.

Redundant; azure means sky blue, so one of these adjectives should be deleted. I’d remove blue.

4. It is the slight of hand that the left does with rediculous name reversals (like “family planning”) that implies something that in fact does just not happen.

Wrong word; slight is an adjective meaning minor. This should be sleight (from the same word root as sly), meaning crafty deception. Misspelling; should be ridiculous. Transposed words; should be: . . . just does not happen.

3. The last undimmed major steelhead river in California, the Smith and its tributaries, the Middle and South Forks, offer 300 river miles officially designated Wild and Scenic.

Wrong word; should be undammed.

2. This doesn’t have to be about a hero who actually saved people’s lives, like that boy in Holland who stuck his finger in the dyke–it could be just ordinary people and there day-to-day heroism.

Wrong word; dyke is an unflattering slang term for a lesbian, especially one considered to have a masculine appearance. Should be dike, synonymous with dam. Wrong word; should be their.

1. Even when hatched from the incubator, Gordon said that out of a hundred eggs he would be lucky to get one bird that passed his inspection.

(Yikes! Sounds like something from a Star Trek movie.) Dangling modifier; this says that Gordon was hatched from the incubator. Rewritten thus: Gordon said that, even with roosters hatched from the incubator, out of a hundred eggs he would be lucky to get one bird that passed his inspection.

What’s the etymology of entomology?

The headline on last week’s post “I hate to say I tolled you sew” evokes two homonyms (in this case told and so), words that sound like other words but mean something different. Homonyms can cause trouble for writers by requiring them to decide which version of a word to use. The best known homonyms might be to, two and too. But less well-known homonyms can be quite tricky:

Actress Jennifer Garner once portrayed the superheroine Elektra, who battles the forces of evil with her signature sighs.

Sighing may not be an effective way to fight evil. The correct word is sai, the Japanese word for a traditional, ancient short stabbing sword from the island of Okinawa.

Sigh and sai are true homonyms, in that they are pronounced exactly alike. Even more troublesome for writers can be false homonyms, words that sound somewhat (but not exactly) alike but are spelled differently:

Aquatic etymologists still debate the classification of the countless different species of mayflies and caddisflies that inhabit the American West.

An etymologist is one who studies word origins, and might tell you that the English word petty comes from the French petit, meaning little or small. The correct word here is entomologists, for scientists who study insects.

Unfortunately, there’s no “rule” or quick fix for dealing with homonyms (except perhaps to, two and too), since there are so many possibilities. It’s best to be aware of the words you’re using and choose wisely. But we should all do that anyway.

Here are this week’s editorial funnies to test yourself. See how many errors you can spot. Each example contains at least one.

5. The sun began its slow but steady ascent into the cloudless, azure blue sky.

4. It is the slight of hand that the left does with rediculous name reversals (like “family planning”) that implies something that in fact does just not happen.

3. The last undimmed major steelhead river in California, the Smith and its tributaries, the Middle and South Forks, offer 300 river miles officially designated Wild and Scenic.

2. This doesn’t have to be about a hero who actually saved people’s lives, like that boy in Holland who stuck his finger in the dyke–it could be just ordinary people and there day-to-day heroism.

1. Even when hatched from the incubator, Gordon said that out of a hundred eggs he would be lucky to get one bird that passed his inspection.

Here are the answers to last week’s editing follies:

5. The bad thing about a horse is they have a mind of their own, and no matter how hard you pull on those reigns a horse is a horse of coarse.

When making a general statement, it often makes sense to use the plural, in this case horses. Wrong word. A reign is the period of time a monarch is in power. Those leather strips for steering horses are reins. Wrong word. Coarse is an adjective meaning rough or unrefined. The correct word here is course. Rewritten thus: The bad thing about horses is they have minds of their own, and no matter how hard you pull on those reins, a horse is a horse, of course.

4. The executive offices housed on the fifth floor proudly display the many celebrities and superstars that have walked its halls.

(Are the living celebrities imprisoned in cages for display? Are the deceased ones mounted like hunting trophies?) Missing word. Presumably the executive offices don’t display the actual celebrities and superstars, but images of them. Wrong pronoun. That is a pronoun for things. For people, the correct pronoun is who. Rewritten thus: . . . proudly display photos of the many celebrities and superstars who have walked its halls.

3. Many sniper rifles are equipped with muzzle breaks and/or flash suppressors as well as high-quality optics.

Wrong word. Should be brake. A muzzle brake, aka a recoil compensator, is a device fitted to the muzzle of a gun with ports, or holes, drilled perpendicular to the bore. These allow some of the gases from the exploding cartridge to escape the barrel sideways as the bullet exits the muzzle, thereby braking (slowing) the muzzle. That released gas pressure would otherwise be felt as recoil in the shooter’s shoulder.

2. There will be a private internment by invitation, with a public memorial service at the Whittington Center at a date to be announced. Our thoughts and prayers are with the family.

Wrong word. Internment is prison confinement. Should be interment (literally “putting into the earth”), synonymous with burial.

1. After pulling off two consecutive quarterly profits, spiraling consumer losses overwhelmed Citigroup’s strong trading results in the third quarter.

Dangling modifier. This says that the losses pulled off profits . . . which would be quite a trick. Rewritten thus: After Citigroup pulled off two two consecutive quarterly profits, spiraling consumer losses . . .

Excuse me, but your modifier is dangling Part Deux

Are we having fun yet?

Readers of my recent posts about editing are probably getting the idea that editors can’t take anything for granted. That’s true–we can’t. Editing is detail-oriented, painstaking work. However, if you love to read, it can also be immensely rewarding.

In many ways it’s more art than science, which is what makes it so much fun.

Each of the sentences below contains at least one error. See how many you can spot.

5. While training in miserable weather (be it cold, snow, rain, or heat) can no doubt be useful, certainly such climactic conditions do not make it easier to master the skills needed.

4. The raid by Israeli forces at Entebbe, Uganda, in July 1976 using silenced 9mm Ingram M10s and the West German rescue of kidnapped passengers at Mogadishu in the Sudan, where silenced Heckler & Koch MP5 9mm SMGs were used, are just two examples of the usefulness of sound suppressors.

3. Those who now live in cities are often disconnected from the land. Their only brush with wildlife occurs on the National Graphic Channel or Animal Plant.

2. Once having tasted the climatic pleasure of this elicit activity, he found ways to repeat it.

1. Enemies are forced into shaky alliances. And when the woman Fang loves is accused of betraying her people, her only hope is that Fang believes in her. Yet in order to save her, Fang must break the law of his people and the faith of his brothers. That breech could very well spell the end of both their races and change their world forever. The war is on and time is running out . . .

Answers in next post.

Here are the answers from last week’s collection of misfires:

5. To be considered insane in New York State, Shawcross’s team had to show quite specifically that at the time of the various offenses—every single one—he suffered from a mental defect such that either he did not know what he was doing or could not appreciate that it was wrong.

Here, “considered insane” is a dangling modifier. It wasn’t the team of defense lawyers who were considered insane, but Shawcross. Rewritten thus: For Shawcross to be considered insane in New York State, his defense team had to show that . . . (Arthur Shawcross, 1945-2008, was a notorious serial killer. His story is gruesome and not for the faint of heart.)

4. Driving toward the park boundary from the center of Tuolumne Meadows, 13,053-foot Mount Dana dominates the horizon to the east.

(Seems unlikely the mountain does a lot of driving.) Here, “driving” is a dangling modifier. Rewritten thus: As you drive toward the park boundary from the center of . . .

3. I fired my .375 Merkel double, and the buffalo took off downhill, but made it only about 75 yards before he dropped dead. The PH told me that the hit was in the juggler.

Wrong word. A juggler is a person who juggles balls, or a busy life. The correct word is “jugular,” the name for two veins in the neck that return blood from the brain to the heart.

2. Damian, the tracker, finally spotted two lone stallions.

This is an oxymoron (two words that can’t go together because each negates the other). By definition, a lone stallion is . . . alone, the only one present—so there can’t be two. The easiest fix is to delete the word “lone.”

1. Frequently a fish would leap fully out and take the fly in his decent, a thrilling site and one of the reasons the big spiders make such exciting fishing.

Wrong words. The first should be “descent” and the second should be “sight.” A site is a place or a location. A sight is something seen.

If you have a sentence that contains an editing error, please share it.

Bill