Posted: In an alternate universe where verbs chill out and let the subject get all the actionWASBY, Wash. -- Eighth grader Jonas Wilkins has been overjoyed by the fact that passive voice was eliminated by him on a recent test in his English class.
"Jonas has been struggling with active and passive voice," was said by his teacher, Joyce Ferdinandt. "I have taught him all I can. The ball has been thrown by me into his court."
Wilkins said that studying had been conducted by him nearly the entire night before the test, which paid off.
"Nailed it," was said by him.
"By me," was then added.
Passive voice was defined by "The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition," edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.; Joseph F. Kett and James Trefil, as follows:
"A verb is in the passive voice when the subject of the sentence is acted on by the verb."
When asked why passive voice was used by the editors in defining the very thing every English teacher in America works a lifetime to stamp out, Diana Reid, publisher Houghton Mifflin's VP of communications replied, “Yourself should be f**ked by you.”
