Tag Archives: verb

Mechanics

Past progressive (imperfect) vs. passive

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Our verb series continues!

Think of the differences between these examples:

She was crying. She cried.
He entered the room. She leaned toward the door, eavesdropping. He entered the room. She was leaning toward the door, eavesdropping.
He smiled at her. He was smiling at her. He was still smiling.

There are lots of books and websites out there that will tell you that the verb “was” and the construct “was [verb]ing” is passive voice. It’s not.

Can I repeat that? The construct “was [verb]ing” is NOT passive voice.

The passive voice means that the actor is not in the subject position. Instead, the thing acted upon is in the subject position. Most people can identify this:

Passive (obvious): The conversation was heard by him.

Passive (sneakier): The conversation was heard.

Active: He heard the conversation.

Note here, too, that the passive voice isn’t past tense. It’s also seen in the present tense (and all the others): The conversation is/will be/would be/could be/might be heard by him.

There are sometimes occasions when the passive voice is called for, or even necessary—to conceal the actor, or if the POV character doesn’t know who the actor is. But mostly the passive voice is awkward and thus to be avoided. (Catch the passive in there?)

The construct “was [verb]ing” is the past progressive (or imperfect) tense. (Again, it’s NOT the passive voice.) Compare the examples at the beginning of this post. How does “She was crying” differ from “She cried”? To me, “she was crying” means tears were falling. “She cried” is most likely a speech tag. If not, it almost seems like she’s done crying. Maybe my Spanish training is showing here, but can I just clarify that this is the preterite?

Note that the past progressive is necessary to show an ongoing action in the past. In the second example, when does the leaning start? In “He entered the room. She leaned . . .” the simple past tense (preterite) can indicate consecutive actions—he walks in, then she leans. In “He entered the room. She was leaning . . .” the progressive shows an ongoing action that began before the simple past action—he walks in and finds her already leaning. If you really hate the imperfect, you can rephrase this as “He found her leaning against the door, eavesdropping, when he walked in the room,” or some such.

The third example, “He smiled/was smiling/was still smiling” might have a few more shades in it. When I picture these, I see someone break into a smile for “He smiled.” “He was smiling” show someone already grinning. “He was still smiling” is a bit more specialized—we’ve already seen him begin to smile (or just smiling) . . . and he’s still at it. (Don’t you wish he’d stop?)

When using a “was [verb]ing,” be sure it’s on purpose, to generate a specific effect—and don’t overuse it, or it kills that effect. If that’s why you’re using it, and it seems to be working, don’t let anyone bully you out of it, especially if they claim it’s “passive.”

What are some other good uses for past progressive tense and passive voice? Let me know!

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Mechanics

Wait, it’s passive and tensed? The layman’s guide to verb words

If we’re going to spend the merry, merry month of May talking about verbs, it’d be pretty useful to have some working vocabulary, right? I’ll be the first to admit that though I have a degree in Linguistics with a minor in English, I can never keep “intransitive” and “transitive” straight. Even a Word Nerd can learn some new tricks (although I’m sure Annette does know these terms 😉 ). And yes, we’re going to start really simple—although I’m sure you already intuitively know most of this stuff!

The following are all properties of verbs:

Tense expresses when the action occurred. Past tense, for example, means the action happened in the past. (Told you we’d start simple!)

Person and number determine how we conjugate the verb: the first person, plural, form of “to walk” (present tense) is “walk” as in “we walk.” (English verbs are tricky, since I walk, you walk, we walk, y’all walk, they walk. Only he, she and it walks 😉 .) Because we like everyone to get along, verbs must agree in person and number—the conjugated form of the verb must match the subject. None of that “I walks” stuff.

Voice can have this really long, technical definition, but let’s just put it this way: voice tells us if the subject of the sentence is doing the action or being acted upon. And there’s a great example in that sentence there: the guy IS DOING the action is active voice. The guy IS BEING ACTED upon is passive voice—the guy, the subject of the sentence, isn’t doing anything.

Aspect can indicate an ongoing action: this is the “progressive” tenses—I am walking vs. I walk.

Mood is complicated (and not just because I’m a woman). If you know what the word “subjunctive” means, good for you! That’s a mood. And that’s all I’m gonna say.

Transitive and intransitive are two verb classes that tell us whether or not the verb will have an object. Okay, say it with me now: transitive verbs take objects (the thieves!). Transitive verbs transfer the action of the verb to something later in the sentence. For example:

Transitive: Joe took the bicycle. (The bicycle is the object.)
Intransitive: Joe died. (Don’t steal bad, bad Leroy Brown’s bike, dude.)

When this gets messed up . . . it’s pretty funny:

Transitive abuse: Joe took. (Yeah, okay, sometimes it could work where the object is understood, but not in isolation like this.)
Intransitive abuse: Joe died the bicycle. (He did what now?)

And now for the finale: the ones you’re going to want to remember for future posts here are tense, voice, and (in)transitive. They just seemed lonely without the full complement of verb qualities 😉 .

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Mechanics

May it be

I’ve been thinking about verbs for a while now, and I’m thinking that’s where I want to start with my rants posts about writing topics. And what better time to discuss verbs than the merry, merry month of May, right?

Right?

C’mon, guys—it’s a modal? A modal verb?

Yeah, on that note, I think we’ll be starting with the basics—like what the heck a modal is, anyway—and then go on to talk about how we use verbs in writing, including the dreaded passive voice. (Guess what—if you’re getting dinged by your critique partners for writing in the passive voice a lot, you might not be doing anything wrong. Then again, you might—but still, there’s hope!)

And I’m lining up guest posts from some brilliant English minds (even doctors, folks!), so be sure to check back next week—or subscribe to the blog to get RSS updates (or email updates)—to join in the “verbal” discussion.

In other news, I’m renaming my current works. Yes, I know, I can’t help it—I just read the chapter on titling in Stein On Writing and I found one that really struck me:

Saints and Agents

To match the new title for Duty of the Priest, Evidence of Things Not Seen is now Saints and Spies. The Projects page and excerpt page have been updated to reflect this.

And I promise soon to talk titling and explain this move. But first—verbs!

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