As an engineer, if I write reports in the active voice, they are rejected by management.

@ffggddss

4 жыл бұрын

@Greg Jacques Lucifer's Jizz Gargler Except you've now dangled the referent for "engineer" - it's syntactically attached to "reports." Try: _Reports written by engineers in the active voice are rejected by management._ Fred

@festivitycat

4 жыл бұрын

Exactly, it's easy to laugh at how dumb the passive voice is, but in the real world there is an expectation (lol) that it is used.

@feliciamoreland2367

4 жыл бұрын

Engineers are to write in the 'Technical' form of writing. Is there a different in technical vs active?

@ewg6200

4 жыл бұрын

Surita Mantinubra "...that it be used".

@ewg6200

4 жыл бұрын

As an engineer, I like to start declarations condescendingly with the words "As an engineer, ...", because it makes me feel superior.

My favorite from American politics: “mistakes were made”. Passive voice, the last refuge of a scoundrel.

@tammcd

4 жыл бұрын

My least favorite aspect of recent American politics: mistakes were made again and again ................. and again. Many protagonists, but the salient point is *mistakes*.

@geammanDW

4 жыл бұрын

Like what?

@EsTnjui

4 жыл бұрын

It's very easy to transmogrify this statement into the active: “Mistakes made themselves.” :)

@Hecatonicosachoron

4 жыл бұрын

If scoundrels use the passive, I hate to think what perversions those who omit verbs get up to.

@andrewbesso4257

4 жыл бұрын

No one actually made the mistakes. The mistakes just sort of happened.

What helps make communication most interesting is when the communicator has learned all the rules and then proceeds to skillfully bend them, or even break them, as they choose. This applies to other arts and science also.

@caststagemysteries

4 жыл бұрын

They also slip up and do exactly what they're trying not to.

@albertbatfinder5240

4 жыл бұрын

It applies to sport and games. You can win by going against the conventional tactics and strategy. But you’ve got to know ALL the rules to know which one to break, and when.

@feliciamoreland2367

4 жыл бұрын

Arts yes. Science no. To add a zest to your scientific writing, add connotations. Second thought: It maybe acceptable on some platforms, depending on your audience.

@feliciamoreland2367

4 жыл бұрын

@@caststagemysteries The writer must put in the 'work' to write an acceptional paper. It take brain power beyond knowledge of information. 😉

@jb-sq2lm

Жыл бұрын

@@feliciamoreland2367 there is a word in my language from a linguistics book that got 3 synonyms one with good connotation one with neutral sense third with bad connotation. science is precise what anybody needed are the enthusiasm coupled with practicum like the potato hammered with knife (moment of inertia) by a female dozent in yt, 3blue1brown visual programming using raw maths in programming languages (using maths to programmed the program that shows maths illustration), or the MIT teacher about wheel and bowling bowl momentum (commenter noted the phrase paraphrased: this is with a heavy calculations [this illustration is a product of complex derivatives of alot of concepts thus don't expect easy maths of of this physics experiment])

English lesson at a master level? Awesome! Im all IN! Thanks👍

This same stuff is in the seminar and books of Robert S. Burger's "How to Write So People Can Understand You", circa 1970's. Instead of "Zombie Nouns," Burger called it "verb mutilation".

@gayass8599

4 жыл бұрын

the imagery there was nice

I wish I'd known in school that I would find myself getting a sensible chuckle from a video about syntax in my spare time. It would have helped me feel far less oppressed by English classes.

3:27 That is beautiful. The academic uses the passive voice twice in one sentence to say that academics overuse the passive voice.

Thank you very much sir with all the respect for this invaluable insight into this highly debatable topic.

@feliciamoreland2367

4 жыл бұрын

Why is this debatable? The English language is beautiful with all rules applied. I have noticed the more ppl use it, the slack it has become. That frightens me. The math magicians have their numbers. Let us have our 'proper' english. 😂😂😂

Pinker is splendidly analytic.

I'm no linguist but... it seems like the speaker is ignoring the prime reason why someone would use the passive voice most of the time: not knowing, or not wanting to make assumptions about the subject/agent! "A was done" is not another form for "B did A": "A was done by B" is. You can't express "A was done" in the active voice if you don't know B, unless you use "someone"

@richardbloemenkamp8532

4 жыл бұрын

Agree and Pinter knows this very well but I suppose he does not want to focus on that issue. It remains a problem though. In particular in big projects, nobody likes to take the responsibility that he or she just made a random choice to do something a certain way. So if you write: "I did A and then I did B" you expose yourself much more to questions and blame then if you write, "After A, B was done". As a second point, I suppose, is that most writers do not want to put themselves on a pedestal. "I did A and the I did B" sounds a bit as: "Look at me, I made such great and important choices". I think the best solution is to work on things with multiple people and write "we".

@bo_392

4 жыл бұрын

@Nicola you are no linguist, but he certainly is. and he explains why people do it at 10:30.

@ZeedijkMike

4 жыл бұрын

@@richardbloemenkamp8532 As I was reading through your comment I started recognizing that is how I often write instructions or help texts. I start active but then find it too 'finger pointing' and then I rewrite in a more passive tone. (Not a native English speaker/writer but have the same 'issue' in other languages (Danish and Dutch) too)

The passive voice must be avoided.

@subbuktek

4 жыл бұрын

@@Philrc Jokes were made!

@bkenglandUTube

4 жыл бұрын

This KZread comment block was shared!

@HasseOrn

4 жыл бұрын

This point was lost on me.

@jeffmurphy7683

4 жыл бұрын

The passive voice must be avoided as a means to facilitate the embrace of clarity as well as disengagement from verbosity.

@feliciamoreland2367

4 жыл бұрын

👏👏👏I agree. Avoided when writing learning material. Too many words slows momentum; the reader will get distracted; the reader will gain a head-ache. 😂

" The *proliferation* of *nominalizations* in a discursive *formation* may be an *indication* of a *tendency* towards *pomposity* and *abstraction* "

Read it as Zombie Nuns... 😱

@ostimeg

4 жыл бұрын

I would read that

@jimsvideos7201

4 жыл бұрын

I'd watch that movie.

@itsdonaldo

4 жыл бұрын

@@jimsvideos7201 Director Peter Jackson's first movie has a zombie nun in it. its called "dead Alive"

I liked.

Zombie nouns are widely common in legal terms, laws and federal directions

Indeed

this is a good case for new speak

Did anybody think about one more quantum field like field of thoughts, or wishes.. i do not know how to formulate it correctly. Like electricity can make things move, or magnetic field can make things move - our wishes or thoughts also can make things move...

I've always been told not to use passive voice.

Thank for this thing.

"Mission accomplished"

I wonder what Dr. Pinker thinks about the unspecified "they," e.g., "They shoot horses, don't they?"

Well done with humor.👍 :)

I thoroughly enjoyed this. Thank you for sharpening my writing skills!

@gayass8599

4 жыл бұрын

your writing skills were sharpened.

Passive voice vs active voice

🌬️

🐕

Great , but old video

@TheRoyalInstitution

4 жыл бұрын

Thank you! The pandemic has closed our doors and furloughed all but a few people, so we're having to take a trip down memory lane and revisit some of our back catalogue. We have some real gems from our early KZread days so we're actually kind of excited to show them to people who may have missed them the first time around.

@gayass8599

4 жыл бұрын

@@TheRoyalInstitution it was the best part of a quite good lecture so who are we to complain

Also, any noun can be verbed.

Helen Sword said it better....

Thingify me daddy

@Hecatonicosachoron

4 жыл бұрын

Objectify me father

This video has 690 views and 69 likes Everyone liked that

Funny he?

Was this epsteins friend 😂

We think with words.

@ostimeg

4 жыл бұрын

We don't. My stomach rumbling because its empty doesn't use English or French to tell me so -- it just rumbles.

@levicoffman5146

4 жыл бұрын

@@ostimeg Yeah, but then you think with words in your head, "I wonder if there is any Chinese food left in the fridge."

@ronaldrodriguez1404

4 жыл бұрын

I think with images... in high definition. I play the world in my head as a movie. The only words are those of the narrator, in the voice of Mr. Morgan Freeman, during critical junctures.

Hey Pinker how's Epstein doing?

@gayass8599

4 жыл бұрын

mistakes were made by epstien

Most people don't talk proper, not like wot I do.

@gayass8599

4 жыл бұрын

"hilarious"

Steven Pinker is hard to listen to. He has good ideas, but I feel like my head is being whacked.

@ostimeg

4 жыл бұрын

Really? I found him quite a good sharp talker, with no weasal words, like excessive ums, etc. Just my 2c

at what point is he gonna just cut bait and admit that his hairdo has been terrible the entire last 20 years?

@codyramseur

4 жыл бұрын

Very wrong

@zilgmairbe5213

4 жыл бұрын

Never? When it starts falling out?

Steven could be a less distracting and more engaging speaker by quitting smacking his lips. Gross. Someone nitpicking others' speech should not do so from a glass house.

@bo_392

4 жыл бұрын

i didn't even notice. talk about "nitpicking".

@gayass8599

4 жыл бұрын

@@bo_392 This is like a chain reaction of "nit-pickery," ; I love it.