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r/grammar · u/Uriel_Arc1 août 2026, 16:54

Still Confused about Passive Voice

Passive voice totally baffles me. I am confused still about what are the conditions for passive voice are. I am told that a passive construction is when the subject and object are inverted, or when a subject is being acted upon, but what if, to take the former, there is no object? And I guess i am confused still about what it means to be acted upon.

“The medication list was discussed.”

“The next hour was devoted to review.”

Both of these sentences, I believe, are passive. They are part of a piece of fiction I am writing. Both belong to sentences that read: “Jill’s medication list was discussed” and “The next hour was devoted to a review of Jill’s symptoms.”

For me these constructions sounds perfectly reasonable, and I do not understand why they are passive. Is the only way to make “Jill’s medication list was discussed” by adding a new subject… “They discussed Jill’s medication.” Why is a subject needed?

Suppose one starts off a story writing about a car. There are no human subjects in it, no subjects at all, but things happen to the car. Such as “The car was shipped overseas.” This is passive is it not? But how can such a situation be related in the active voice? This has been giving me a headache for a bit now!

122

Commentaires

u/summerlawnsss11 août 2026, 17:00
Those sentences sound reasonable to you because they are correctly-constructed passive voice sentences. There is nothing “incorrect” about passive voice—it’s a normal feature of English (and many other languages)—but style guides often recommend against it because a stronger and clearer sentence might be available in the active voice. However, when you want to de-emphasize the “doer” of the verb, or when you want to emphasize the thing with/to which the verb was done, the passive voice might just be the best option.
- u/DashiellHammett11 août 2026, 17:24
  Excellent response. I agree completely. I taught advanced legal writing in law school for years, and a point I made often is that the use of the passive voice can be very effective for purposes of emphasizing one thing, or de-emphasizing another. I often used a famous sentence from a legal opinion written by master stylist and jurist Benjamin Cardozo describing a murder: The pistol came from the pocket., and from the pistol a single shot, which did its deadly work. Notice how the shooter was made to disappear? In any case, as I always told my students: Using the passive voice is fine, just make sure you use it on purpose and for a good reason. Sloppy writers lapse unknowingly into the passive voice, which is why teachers tend to nudge toward use of the active voice. But, as other comments have noted, there is nothing incorrect about the passive voice.
  - u/evmcha11 août 2026, 18:051 réponse
  - u/CatL1f311 août 2026, 18:45
u/Narrow-Durian483711 août 2026, 17:03
You seem to be under the impression that passive voice is somehow wrong and always to be avoided. It's not. Sometimes it's the best way to say what you need to say. And sometimes it's to be avoided because it's awkward, or overused, or leaves out the important information of who's doing the thing. For example, you wrote "I am told that a passive construction is ..." *Who* told you that? If it doesn't matter, then the way you wrote it is fine; but if it does matter, your use of the passive voice is a problem.
u/Ok_Caterpillar201011 août 2026, 17:09
You're less confused than you think you are. Everything you're saying about the passive voice and your sample sentences is correct. A subject is NOT always needed. And yes, that's the perfect time for a passive because it focuses the attention on the object, which is sometimes exactly where you want it. And you're the writer, so you can put it there. The only quibble I'm going to make here is that grammatical subjects don't have to be human. Your example of a story about a car without any humans doesn't mean there are no subjects. "The car was shipped overseas" is indeed passive. But "The car rolled off the ramp" or "The leather upholstery gleamed in the moonlight" are active, with "the car" and "the leather upholstery" as the subjects. But overall, yes, you're right. Why? Is someone telling you passive voice is uniformly bad writing? If so, they're wrong, and I'd stop taking writing advice from them.
- u/Uriel_Arc11 août 2026, 17:19
  I have in mind Stephen King and George Orwell’s advice to avoid passive voice like the plague. I know the latter doesn’t follow his own advice. I just do not want my writing to be weak because I have used a passive here or there.
  - u/good-good-dog11 août 2026, 17:251 réponse
  - u/Ok_Caterpillar201011 août 2026, 17:29
- u/MrWakey11 août 2026, 17:24
  
  subject is NOT always needed. And yes, that's the perfect time for a passive because it focuses the attention on the object, which is sometimes exactly where you want it.
  
  I think this wording could be confusing because it mixes up "subject" as a grammar term with "actor," which is what the subject of a common, active sentence would be. In “Jill’s medication list was discussed," "medication" is the subject. Similarly, in "the car was shipped overseas," "car" is the subject of the sentence. But they are not the actors. So when you say "A subject is NOT always needed," you're right if you mean the actor doesn't always need to be stated. But a passive sentence does need a subject, grammatically spaking.
  - u/Uriel_Arc11 août 2026, 17:29
u/vastaril11 août 2026, 17:12

Is the only way to make “Jill’s medication list was discussed” active voice by adding a new subject… “They discussed Jill’s medication.”

Yes. Or "the doctors discussed Jill's medication", etc.

Why is a subject needed?

Because that's the difference between passive and active voice. A passive construction essentially hides/removes/de-emphasises the subject, removing them from the sentence (usually - it would, iirc, still be passive voice if you add on "by [subject]", as in the classic "you can identify if something is in a passive voice or not by adding 'by zombies' to the sentence, if it makes grammatical sense, the sentence is passive" [eg "Jill's medication list was discussed by zombies" versus "the doctors discussed the medication listby zombies"], the first one still makes sense grammatically, the second doesn't). That's not always a bad thing, sometimes the "who did it" isn't important.

But essentially, passive voice is "a thing happened to the object", active voice is "the subject did the thing to the object", so you need a subject to be front and centre to construct a sentence in active voice.
u/Pretty-Care-781111 août 2026, 17:16
It's used to deemphasize the "doer" of the action and focus on the action itself. It's mostly done when the subject is unknown, unimportant, obvious, or avoiding blame. "Someone's keys were found on the floor." (I found a set of keys, but I don't know whose they are) "The best coffee is grown in Colombia." (We know that farmers grow it, so we don't need to say who grows it. It also puts the emphasis on the coffee, rather than the grower) "My windows were left open during last night's rain storm." (My brother did it when he borrowed my car, but I'm not going to embarrass him or anything by saying that he did it) Fun Fact: the last use can actually be a way to kind of tease whoever did it. Like, if everyone knows it was my brother, and I avoid saying that he did it, even if it's obvious that it was him, it's a way to emphasize the blame. We do the same thing with using an active instead of passive construction: "SOMEONE left my windows open last night." (We all know that it was my brother, but using the indefinite "someone" with emphasis is more like an accusation)
- u/338wildcat11 août 2026, 17:32
  "Someone's keys were on the floor when I walked into the room." Or just "someone's keys were on the floor." "The best coffee grows in Colombia." "My windows were open during the storm."
- u/Narrow-Durian483711 août 2026, 18:00
  The part you're leaving out by writing "Someone's keys were found on the floor" in passive voice isn't whose keys they are but who found the keys.
  - u/Pretty-Care-781111 août 2026, 18:10
- u/Piper-Bob11 août 2026, 18:07
  My wife always interprets "someone left the window open as passive-aggressive, even though it's usually the case that I just don't remember if it was me. ;-)
u/Internal_Car_996211 août 2026, 17:20
Subject has nothing to do with being human. It's a grammatical category that describes a noun-like word's relation to the action of the verb. When the subject is acting, the verb is active. When the subject is acted on, the verb is passive.
u/CoffeeB4Dawn11 août 2026, 17:28
First, the idea that we should never use passive voice is false--just be aware of when and why you use it. Second, the sentences you used are fine.
u/FriendlyConfines2311 août 2026, 17:32
So here’s an example, from a hypothetical tv commercial, of how one might use passive voice to their advantage when eliciting an emotional response:

“I was crashed into by a semi truck. I called (name of attorney here) and he won the lawsuit.”

This paints the person as the victim and makes that victim the focus of the message. They were crashed into. And now the person watching the commercial might have an emotional response to that as they learn all about the wonderful new attorney who might one day also help them should the need arise.
u/ConfidentSuspect412511 août 2026, 17:33
All things equal, active voice is better, more clear and direct. For example, "the ball was hit by the boy" is passive, and "the boy hit the ball" is active. I think most think the active version is better.
u/waywardflaneur11 août 2026, 17:38
First off, active voice is much more important in formal writing. In addition to more clearly emphasizing the subject and object, active voice more firmly and assertively communicates a point or makes an argument. It’s more direct and less wishy-washy about what you’re trying to say. While many have mentioned that passive voice deemphasizes the subject, perhaps more importantly, it deemphasize the action, because it almost always includes the verb ‘to be’, whereas the verb in active voice would stand alone. Looking for uses of any form of ‘to be’ is another good way of identifying when you might be using passive voice. I think my teacher taught me a very good lesson when she told me to limit my use of ‘to be’, find them and restructure to the active voice using only the main verb, which is really the heart of what you are saying in most cases. Removing the helper verb and focusing on the main verb also puts you in a position to explore more varied and perhaps appropriate or nuanced verbs, because the sentence is not distracted with the proceeding ‘to be’.
- u/Norwester7711 août 2026, 18:04
  Just looking for forms of *be* isn’t enough, though: *be …ing* is progressive aspect, not passive voice. *Be …ed* is passive voice.
  - u/waywardflaneur11 août 2026, 18:10
u/FaceReality111 août 2026, 17:38
People overuse it, often to avoid responsibility or to avoid figuring out or stating who is responsible for the action (mistakes were made). It typically makes writing less forceful, clear, and informative. But these are all style things — it is perfectly grammatical and sometimes appropriate or necessary.
u/ZinniasAndBeans11 août 2026, 17:44

For me these constructions sounds perfectly reasonable, and I do not understand why they are passive.

Both are true. Passive voice is perfectly reasonable.
u/Crafty-Dog-768011 août 2026, 17:50
Active is often Subject Verb Object, passive is often OVS. "The boy kicked the ball" vs "The ball was kicked by the boy". Passive is useful when you want to deemphasize the subject, like in a crime
u/NeilZod11 août 2026, 17:52
The people who tell you to avoid the passive voice typically have no idea how to describe the passive voice. You mention King - he parrots Strunk and White. The examples in Elements of Style are active voice sentences. Even when Orwell wrote to tell us to avoid passive voice, he peppered that paper with passive voice.

This is a good description of the passive voice. It tells you the various ways that we make it and what we use it for. You should look at the passive voice as a way to describe verb phrases. Don’t mix it up with “passive construction” or “passive sentence”. It is easy to use the active voice to write a sentence that has no action. You have a sense that the passive voice is a tool a write can use to direct the gaze of readers. There is no categoric reason to discard it as a tool.
u/cloud_watcher11 août 2026, 17:55
Yes, you’re fine! Those are passive voice and passive voice is fine. People just tend to overuse it sometimes and it makes their writing less interesting. I tend to like that sentence structure a fair amount, it sounds good to my ear at certain times. Someone is probably getting carried away telling you not to use it.
u/Historical-Client-7811 août 2026, 17:59
Passive voice should generally be avoided in business writing, but there’s no reason to force an active voice in creative writing if it doesn’t make sense.
u/Piper-Bob11 août 2026, 18:06
Whether "Jill's medication list was discussed" is "good" depends on the context. Taken in isolation, it's bad, because we don't know who was doing the discussing. A better sentence might be "Jill's parents discussed her medication list with the doctor." But maybe you've written a big paragraph describing the scene and we already know who the actors are. In that case, maybe the sentence you have is fine. I do a lot of technical writing and we absolutely avoid any passive voice because it can create ambiguity. Going back to our example, suppose you've set the scene and we know Jill's mom and dad are in the doctor's office and they are concerned about her behavior. "Jill's medication list was discussed." Does that mean the mom talked to the doctor while the dad listened? Ambiguity can be good or bad in fiction, but it is bad in technical writing and journalism.
u/ChalupaChup11 août 2026, 18:12
As people have mentioned, using passive voice is totally fine if it makes the most sense, but the tip I learned for identifying passive voice is to add “by zombies” to the end. If it still works, it’s passive voice. “The medication list was discussed by zombies” is a grammatically correct sentence, so it’s passive voice.
u/Khpatton11 août 2026, 18:21
Passive voice isn’t incorrect, just not preferred in contexts where specifying the “doer” is important. Consider your examples: “The medication list was discussed.” Who discussed the medication list? If it’s clear from the previous sentence or two, it’s probably fine, but I would still lean toward “X (and Y?) discussed the medication list.” “The next hour was devoted to review.” Whoever was doing the review is almost certainly clear from context, here. “X reviewed Jill’s symptoms” is stronger if the story is from X’s POV. If it’s from Jill’s POV, it’s reasonable to deemphasize X by using a passive construction. “The car was shipped overseas”: reasonable construction if you’re just describing how you/someone got their car, because it doesn’t matter who shipped it. Not a good construction if the shipper is relevant; in that case, you would rephrase to “\[Company/Name\] shipped the car overseas.”
u/anonymousambassasor11 août 2026, 18:26
If you can write “by zombies” after a sentence and it makes sense that is the passive voice.
u/Robot_Alchemist11 août 2026, 18:27
We devoted the next hour to review She discussed the medication list The subject (we/she) is removed when you’re using passive
u/kyriacos7411 août 2026, 18:50
The passive voice exists. There's no rule saying "it's wrong." But the best writing is active and engaging. Look at your favorite novels. Look at your textbooks. Look at any piece of writing. Most sentences are written with strong, active verbs. As human English speakers, we don't normally *speak* in passive voice unless we're emphasizing something. Feel free to use the passive voice. But too much will turn what you're writing into sounding like a police report. "The passenger was hit by..."