What Is “Passive Form”?
“Maverick is a word which appeals to me more than misfit. Maverick is active, misfit is passive.” – Alan Rickman
“Passive Form” is one of those grammar terms I generally try to avoid. Unfortunately for this chapter, I can’t quite do that, so we’ll spend some time going over what passive form is so it’s no longer an abstract concept to you.
Here’s the simple way to describe “passive form” -
An action that cannot be controlled by someone or something.
So, “someone” could be you, or it could be someone else. “Something” is just a thing. Either way, this someone or something is doing an action (actions are verbs, yeah?) and it’s not being controlled. We’ll be looking at the most common (and much simpler) “passive form” which is known as “direct passive.” The reason it’s called direct passive is because it uses transitive verbs (which are the verbs you use when someone or something is directly doing something to something else. This may seem a bit strange, because you’d think that passive form would go with intransitive verbs, but that’s the way the ball bounces. So, our focus will be on transitive verbs this chapter, which will be good, because I imagine you could use more focus in that area!
So before moving on, make sure you know the definition of “passive form.” Put simply, it’s an action that someone or something cannot control. Not too good for the control freaks out there.