Re: Active versus passive (WAS Displays versus Appears-Which One? )

[Christine -dot- Anameier -at- seagate -dot- com]

Bruce Byfield wrote:
> . . . Millions of people believe all sorts of
> arbitrary rules, such as:
>
> - never start a sentence with a conjunction.
> - never split an infinitive.
> - never end a sentence with a preposition.
> - never use "I" in formal writing.
>
> However, such rules are not a part of English grammar. Nor do most
> of them do anything to increase clarity; since many drift too far
> from oral English, they often increase vagueness, or at least
> awkwardness.

Yes! The way English has traditionally been taught isn't just
ineffective--it's downright counterproductive. I taught freshman comp for a
couple of years during grad school, and the first thing I did each term was
ask the students to recite the "writing-teacher rules" that had been
drilled into their heads. Then I told them to toss those rules out the
window and write with a human voice. But some students always kept spinning
out the standard paint-by-numbers prose they'd always been taught. By now
they're producing lifeless, incomprehensible memos and email. Every time I
write a concise-but-not-short email to coworkers, I know they're unlikely
to read it; in their experience, a half-page email is a painful thing.

The other problem: people wind up thinking that as long as they don't split
infinitives or start sentences with "and" or use the word "I," they're
competent writers. I've worked with a lot of people who, having memorized
The Grammar Rules, saw no need to get an actual writer involved in their
documents, since they themselves "knew grammar" and therefore could write.
Usually, the only reason their documents even crossed my desk is that
someone heard I "knew Word" and they figured I could efficiently make the
revisions that someone penciled in. And I've worked under officious bosses
who flexed their supervisory muscles by "correcting" my grammar--applying
the arbitrary rules, marking any long sentence as a "run-on," objecting to
any word over two syllables long (I was once chided for using "big words"
like "alternative" and "feasible"), and crossing out any contractions
(arrrrghhhhh). That could be a thread in itself...

Some rules are necessary... but it seems the ones everyone remembers are
the easy and meaningless ones. It's a lot easier to "never split an
infinitive" (heh) than to follow the real rules, like "Be clear and
direct," or even subjective rules like "Don't put your readers to sleep."

Hope I haven't dragged this too far off topic. (I'm new here. Hi.)

Christine Anameier, contract tech writer


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