I do a lot of technical writing an invariably I end up using the passive voice, which I am led to believe is a bad thing. For example, in my report I wrote:

"The data is transformed to Gaussian space."

MS Word tells me this is using the passive voice. Is it passive? And if so, how would you word that sentence to be using the active voice.

' I translated the data to Gaussian space' is active, I think. But I also think the passive is preferred in technical writing.

The passive voice is not the great evil that Strunk & White make it out to be, but someone at Microsoft obviously took their dictums* to heart.

(*this can also quite rightly be "dicta" and may be preferred by the Latin students among us)

No x 2.

There is no difference here between UK & US. The difference is between:

Shouldn't it be "h8r"? (or Shouldn't it be 'h8r'?)

and

He said, "Are you home?" (or He said, 'Are you home?')

Logic dictates that the question mark must go outside the quotation marks in the first case and that it must go inside in the second case.

History professors sometimes jokingly call it the "irresponsible passive" because it can be a way of avoiding assigning responsibility. It's the difference between saying, e.g., "Napalm was used in the war" and "American forces used napalm in the war."

Its use by bureaucrats to avoid assigning responsibility has often been deplored: "Steps should be taken ... The decisions were made ..." etc.

But in certain kinds of writing, such as technical writing and other forms of instruction, the writer's intention is a universalizing one and assigning an agent isn't of importance. In the example you give, the question of who is responsible for transforming the data doesn't seem relevant.

This rule is, in any case, what's called a "preferential" rule and, as with all rules, it is never universal. There are many instances where a passive construction is more elegant. (See, for example, above: "Its use ... has often been deplored": a scholarly essay would demand that I say who does the deploring, but in a note on style that would be ponderous.)

I agree with you 100% about what logic dictates. I could have sworn that only the British rules allowed the question mark outside the quotes in the first case, though, as discussed in this thread. I may be crazy, though, I'll look it up.

EDIT: OK, apparently the American rules state that only periods and commas are required to be inside the quotes regardless of intent. For exclamation points, question marks, colons and semicolons it's fine to follow the "logical" rule.

Yes. The distinction is sometimes made between "half-line" punctuation (i.e. commas and periods, which don't come up to the top of the line) and "full-line" punctuation.

For what it's worth, this odd rule--which is now observed chiefly in the US--comes from the days of hand-set type. Old printers put the commas and periods inside the quotation marks because that kept them from falling off when they were at the end of paragraphs, etc.

For this reason, American punctuation rules are sometimes called "printer's logic" (vs. UK "comma logic").

Interesting info, Russell...thanks.

I've got a question in relation to the word ''for'' and articles when writing formally.

Looking at these programs for yourself or for others can be difficult.

It seems like the second ''for'' is unnecessary but i see fairly often. Im not quite sure what's the etiquette in english when it comes to repeating words when writing formally.

She's in for rehab versus She's in for a rehab

Again here, im not sure about the article A. When writing formally, should i skip the article or add it?

It's passive, yes... but also, it should be "the data are transformed...". Data is plural.

I believe this is incorrect. Data is treated as singular with regards to science, I think. Even though it's a collection of pieces, and would classically be plural, it's spoken of as a singular mass, rather than a collective. Could be wrong, though.

Here's Wikipedia, which seems accurate enough:

Late to the conversation but Sun Tzu is for sure pronounced "Sun Te-zoo" when encountered in an English context.

My sister, who is a professional copy editor, posted a Facebook rant recently about the use of the word "impact" as a verb. Of course Webster's lists it as a verb first and noun second, but she goes by the Canadian-English dictionary which lists it as a noun first and informal transitive verb.

I kind of disagree with her -- I like using impact as a verb (though the accent is on the second syllable, as opposed to the first in its noun form) and don't think it sounds informal or wrong. I go with Webster here. Verb is perfectly fine. Anyone else?

Now talk about using words like "conference" as a verb and I'll start to complain.

There's no stopping this evolution of the language. We chair meetings and table motions. Like you, I cringe at some of the modern moves to make verbs out of nouns but there are so many other incorrect usages in the language that these get lost in the noise for me. The constant every day confusion among "I", "me" and "myself" (by supposedly educated people such as news reporters and jounalists) is enough to keep me on linguistic tilt.

I literally could care less about this thread

It reminds me of one of those pretentious, abstract latinate substitutes for concrete, vivid words (e.g, "acquired" for "bought"). It's fine but not as a default.



For 1 and 2, "struck" strikes (heh) me as a word that would be superior there a lot of the time.

For 3, the problem is not the word but rather the vagueness that its use -- as a default -- entails. "X has impacted Y." Okay...how? But meh, other words might have that problem, and I suppose it's serviceable either for a headline or for referring to an "impact" that you defined in the text at some earlier point (or is really obvious or whatever).

4 is sexy.

Also, whoever uses that word as a default while writing fiction should probably be slapped with an extinct fish, but sometimes it can be okay heteroglossically I guess.

Aaaaaand I've learned a new word.

Meh, it would have been better to write in its place, "If the focal character's language allows for it" (or whatever). But I don't really think about word choice while writing on the forums lol. If I were actually writing seriously, eight smaller words would be >>> one big-ass word that only shows up in turgid essays, right?

edit: Nvm, this is a no-brainer Yes.

lol I use so much ****ing punctuation.

edit 2: Oh, ****.

I sent a paper to my friend (linguistics major) to proofread and he made a really big deal about using "impact" as a verb. I never knew this was taboo in formal writing.

It's probably been discussed in this thread, but is there a consensus on pronoun usage for ambiguous genders? For example

1. Every person should take his seat.
2. Every person should take his or her seat.
3. Every person should take their seat.

3 seems wrong for sure based on singular/plural agreement. To me, 2 is probably the preferred choice but seems like it can ruin flow pretty easily.

Singular they tho.

---

4. Everyone should sit down.

---

Lol for 1-3 I'd like to see someone actually try to leave with their chair.

edit (because I just realized the whole sitting down thing wasn't the point): In general, I tend to use either "his or her" or "their."

wp

Interesting, didn't know about singular they.

I've been doing the opposite: usually "his," sometimes "her" (lol inconsistency), almost never "his or her," and never "their."

Prolly gonna switch to "their" now that I know.

Take a seat