Comment by brookst
8 days ago
Yep, just like tritones in music, there is a place for passive voice in writing. But also like tritones, the best general advice is that they should be avoided.
8 days ago
Yep, just like tritones in music, there is a place for passive voice in writing. But also like tritones, the best general advice is that they should be avoided.
That doesn't make sense. It's like saying that the best general advice about which way to turn when you're driving is to turn right. From your comment at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44493308, and from the fact that you used the passive voice in your comment ("they should be avoided") apparently without noticing, it appears that the reason you have this opinion is that you don't know what the passive voice is in the first place.
I can’t find it, but I remember reading an article a year or two ago with an analysis showing some of the most vocal critics of the passive voice used the passive voice more often than most of their contemporary writers.
Probably http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003366.h..., giving specific statistics on Orwell and on Strunk & White, linked from https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922.
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I'm extremely critical of how people use hyphens. Partly because I'm a heavy hyphen-user myself!
> the best general advice about which way to turn
At the risk of derailing into insane pedantry land, this part is kinda true, so maybe not the best analogy?
From routing efficiency: https://www.ge.com/news/reports/ups-drivers-dont-turn-left-p...
And also safety: https://www.phly.com/rms/blog/turning-left-at-an-intersectio...
I cherish your pedantry. If not here, where?
If you always turn right at every intersection, you will just go around and around the same block. Which way you should turn depends on where you want to go.
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