Is it technically passive voice if I write something like this?
"This is the amount of wheat purchased."
Is it technically passive voice if I write something like this?
"This is the amount of wheat purchased."
Yes
The amount of wheat purchased was/is X lbs.
Or
X lbs of wheat was/is purchased.
not passive wrote:
The amount of wheat purchased was/is X lbs.
Or
X lbs of wheat was/is purchased.
Those are passive. I/He purchased 3 pounds of wheat.
Sally Vixxxxxens wrote:
not passive wrote:The amount of wheat purchased was/is X lbs.
Or
X lbs of wheat was/is purchased.
Those are passive. I/He purchased 3 pounds of wheat.
Actually, I didn't purchase any wheat at all.
Nice try though.
Bump.
English Help wrote:
Bump.
OK, just to make you go away...
No, you sentence, "This is the amount of wheat purchased." is NOT written in the passive voice.
The subject of your sentence is the pronoun, 'this'. And it is this 'this' that is 'to be-ing'. Therefore, i.e., e.g., and all such predicate nominations, the sentence is in the active voice - the subject is doing the doing.
Wow thanks for your help.
Just like life, healthy writing should be as active as possible. Your sentence does not convey the action as well as it could. As you know, writing is a learned practice as much as a God-given art.
I prefer the option listed above of "I purchased three pounds of wheat," or "Throughout the Depression tons of wheat rotted at Western train depots as inner-city people starved".
Don't allow LetsRun to replace an English teacher/professor.
Why is he buying wheat?
R2D3 wrote:
Why is he buying wheat?
It's good for you, bro.
R2D3 wrote:
Why is he buying wheat?
Indeed, what IS his motivation?
You should refer all questions about grammar to rojo and wejo. Whatever answer they give will be incorrect; therefore do the opposite.
The sentence is active but is kinda crappy. Usually, what technical writing teachers mean by "active voice" is that a sentence which follows canonical Subject-Verb-Object (SVO) format with an identifiable agent for the subject. While "this" works as a subject, it is a sentence that relies on prior discourse (sentences) for "this" to make sense (because this is a deixis, or pointing word). Basically, replace the pronoun "this" with the actual noun.