"What is wanted?"

Does this drive you crazy? I could strangle whoever came up with the idea that this style makes one sound important. The sentence is supposed to go: "What do you want?"

Grrrr. It's like God is so important we can't even address certain matters like normal people do.

"The Book of Mormon was translated by the Prophet Joseph Smith."

No no no no no. Try this instead:

"Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon."

See? Now isn't that a little easier to take seriously? When people use passive voice it's almost as if they're hiding something, or they don't want to tell the whole truth. They could be strangled by me!

President Monson, especially, is known for using the passive voice. Things like, "Tears were shed, prayers were said...."

prayers were said.....lol, holy monkeys, I can hear his voice! no, no, wait.

voices were heard!

His voice was heard by me.

No responsibility. No accountability.

Monson's is the voice of the omnicient, omnipresent observer/narrator. Looking down from above, but not directly involved. You nailed it! This is exactly why I find his stories so condescending and, well, nauseating.

forestpal Wrote:
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> No responsibility. No accountability.
>
> Monson's is the voice of the omnicient,
> omnipresent observer/narrator. Looking down from
> above, but not directly involved. You nailed it!
> This is exactly why I find his stories so
> condescending and, well, nauseating.

As a professional editor, this is what the passive voice screams to me: "I am too weak and passive to take responsibility for what I am about to say, so I'm going to phrase it in a way that depersonifies and depersonalizes my statement. That way, if someone disagrees with me, I don't have to defend myself; all I have to do is create a little more distance between me and what I just said."



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/25/2010 11:15AM by dogzilla.

This may be a larger-than-LDS situation. It may be a problem shared by many who have been raised in religious, intellectually restrictive, and authoritarian-oriented religions and denomination.

I know someone who was raised in a devoutly observant Roman Catholic family (a family who followed "the rules," and vitually without question) and, from first grade through high school graduation, was educated entirely in Roman Catholic schools. Later, as an adult, he left the Catholic Church entirely behind (he calls himself an "anti-Catholic" now, and has for many years), but his instinctive thought process is so gramatically passive that his work (he is a writer) has to be HEAVILY edited to recast most of his passive sentence constructions into active ones. He is so "passive" in his thought process that, even when he has conscientiously rewritten the same material several times, he is almost entirely "blind" to his persistent passive writing habits...and even though this unacceptable writing pattern has been pointed out to him by countless editors, etc. throughout all of his career.

There is a somewhat related thinking process that illustrates what I mean: I once read something that--when I checked it out as well as I could--turned out to be absolutely true. In Russian fairy tales, stories of all kinds, observations about life, etc., problems tend very heavily to be solved by outside forces of some kind (deus ex machina solutions, "miracles," coincidences, accidents, etc.), rather than by the thoughtful or instinctive efforts of the people facing the problems, whatever they may be. In traditional American stories, beginning with stories told to children, someone has a problem and they tale it upon themselves to figure out how to solve the problem--which may well involve others working in cooperation with them, as a part of a team or partnership of some kind, but regardless of the input from others, the person with the problem is an active force in seeing the problem through to its solution. In Russian stories, the person with the problem is essentially passive, and more or less waits around for someone--or something--else to intervene and solve the problem for them.

A similar pattern, and for similar reasons, can been observed in traditional Japanese culture, and this is why the Japanese are awarded so few Nobel Prizes (something that the Japanese themselves are fully aware of, but feel essentially helpless to do anything substantive about). Within Japanese-in-Japan culture, the necessity to conform to everyone else's expectations works from birth against any individuals who might, under other cultural situations, do outstandingly original scientific, etc. work. It has nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with HOW one is taught from birth to conceptualize reality.

Which is to say: this kind of "passive" thinking is, for many or most people, a consequence of culture--whether that culture be Mormon, or Roman Catholic...or something like Russian or Japanese.

I was around Japanese businessmen way back in my capitalist days. The thing I had to learn about them is that they would not directly say "no." They always had a more passive way of giving a negative reply, and they were constantly nodding even if they had no idea what someone was talking about. I adore the Japanese culture, don't get me wrong, but this kind of cultural passivity can really be an disability at times.

A big problem with religion and human rights is that people will not stand up for themselves when they don't like what is going on. Religion keeps them this way. Religion abuses human rights because it holds people in this passive state. We don't only have to look at the FLDS. I think if you've been raised to believe in superstition then you have had your rights violated. With this kind of foundation, the leaders can get away with anything they please.

I think I'd kill myself if I had to be an editor for LDS writers. Every book has to have twice as many pages to accomodate all of the weasling around and, frankly, superfluous extra words.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2010 06:15AM by Troy.

Troy Wrote:
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frankly, superfluous extra words.


That's what drove me crazy. I was so TBM that I went through a period where I read only books written by LDS scholars or leaders. Sad, I know. I haven't been a reader since I left the Church. I don't know what to read now.

But anyway, they tried too hard to sound intelligent. They'd use words that no one uses in regular conversation and there were those superfluous extra words, and a lot of repeated phrases. You want to say, "Just spit it out will ya?" LOL

That's very interesting about the Russian and Japanese cultures.

I used to work with a life-long Pentacostal and she was the Queen of the Passive Voice. We work for the FL dept. of education. One day, after a new governor took office and had appointed a new commissioner of education, the commissioner sent out a memo. The memo stated that ALL DOE memos henceforth had to follow AP style. Well, AP style calls for changing passive voice to active wherever possible.

AP style is used in newspaper writing. That means all quotes and assertions must be attributable. So passive voice, which does not attribute a thought or action to a specific person, is completely unacceptable if you are following AP style.

This coworker lost her mind. "That's impossible! You can't write anything without using passive voice!" What she was really doing without realizing it, was insulting my 4-year degree in journalism and the 20 subsequent years of writing and editing. I've been on a no-passive-voice bent the entire time, so what she was saying is that it is impossible to do what I do. For a living.

What she was really telling me is that she is terrified to take responsibility for her memos. "The sample test materials have been distributed..." Active voice would attribute, "The DOE distributed the sample test materials..."

So I agree, I think the habit is ingrained in extremely conservative cultures. Part of giving up responsibility to god I guess.

When I went to the AUB private school at the "Brown House" in Bluffdale, Utah, part of my junior high curriculum was to tutor younger kids who were learning how to read. It's not that it was such a bad idea, especially since I could read extremely well from a very early age. I was better educated than most of the teachers by that age and that isn't even anything to boast about. But we were told specifically to never say "no" if one of the younger students made a mistake. I can agree with having a positive attitude with kids, but as a teacher I can't imagine trying to passively say "no" every time a student needs to be told no! I teach adults now, but there shouldn't be a difference. That's partly the point. We can't expect children to take us seriously as parents if we can't speak to them in the active voice. Parents who can't do this are completely hobbled if you ask me.

But it all ended happily ever after. I tutored a little boy named Seth and he really looked up to me. I loved helping him learn something that I enjoyed so much.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/24/2010 07:22AM by Troy.

You took me back to my Business Communications class in college. Nothin gave you a bad grade faster than using passive voice. You'd get your paper back with a big red note written across it: "Re-write with active voice!"

But you got it right. The so-called men of God don't really wish to communicate anything, since they have nothing new to say. So they tell stories. Passive voice works great for story telling.

Maybe Mormons really are trying to avoid attributing their writings and sayings, and perhaps sort of hedge their teachings by writing and talking in the passive voice. Some people even believe and insist that it makes you sound more educated. I write a lot for the government, and it's a grievous sin to ever use passive voice.

...then it is "mistakes were made" and never take responsibility for anything and never, ever take responsibility and then step down as they should many times.

Passive voice is a way to be evasive; to avoid saying what you really mean. In a sentence like "The Spirit was felt," there's no subject; we're never really sure who's doing the feeling. It's no accident the GAs speak this way; it's intentionally being vague. Seems to me a true spokesman for God would just spit it out.

Good one, Troy. IMO they are "hiding something, or they don't want to tell the whole truth."

Or, more vaguely, "the truth was not spoken."

"It is not wanted that there might be a telling of the whole truth."

If I'm grading papers and someone pulls this stunt, I draw a line right through the sentence. I consider it a fine art to express oneself in the most efficient way possible. I don't want to give people any reason to ask me to make myself more clear. I own everything I say and I absolutely HATE to be misunderstood. If I have trouble understanding a student, that student is failing and needs my help right away. With students of any age there is too much at stake for them to develop such poor communication habits. I can't bear the thought of a single one of them walking away from my class without learning how to use this tool.

During the initial years of my college education, several teachers harped on me over my continual inadvertent use of passive voice. I didn't even know what it was. I've almost got it licked at this point, but I still find myself having to root out instances of PV abuse.

I never thought there might be a cultural connection-- but I am seeing it now.

Good LORD ---> DEMON OUT!!!

I had a problem with passive voice in my writing. My liberal, feminist English teacher did a decent job curing students of that problem.

I guess I can blame Mormonism for that!

As a police officer I found the passive voice very useful on police reports. In most cases the police officer isn't an eye witness to the alleged offense but is only recording what others claim to have observed. Even in the case of personal observation at an alleged crime scene one's observations may not be what one thinks them to be. Is that sweet odor the odor associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverage or the odor of ketones associated with diabetes? Is that a bruise associated with domestic violence or a birth mark the complainant has always had?

Attorneys, both prosecution and defense, preferred active statements as it gave them something to shove at the jury for a conviction or attack in front of the jury for an acquittal. Well sorry 'bout that. I just offered observation, not conclusion. Conclusions I left to the judge and/or jury.

more intelligent. It's not just Mormons. I've edited for highly educated professionals and it seems like they overused the passive voice in order to sound more intellectual. Usually it just made them sound pedantic and incoherent. Even when I tried to clean up their works and make it more readable, some of them wanted it changed back because "that's the kind of language people in my field use." I'm not talking about terms, I'm talking about overblown, passive, pedantic silliness that makes it almost impossible to comprehend the point they are trying to make. I think that the Mormon speakers are trying to sound like brilliant religious men and women but to me, they just sound full of themselves.

I agree and disagree with the passive-bashing. As many have said, the passive voice is often weasily and greatly overused. Even as a nevermo, I've been struck by the LDS infatuation with it.

But let's not go overboard. Passives can be very useful and desirable in some narrative situations. In police reports or history, it can describe situations some of whose details are unclear or unknown.

Stylistically, using a passive construction every once in a while and in appropriate ways adds variety to one's writing.

The passive can also be used to avoid over-using "one." Note the use of the passive in the foregoing sentence. I could have written, "ONE can use it ..." but one gets tired of writing "one" all the time; it sounds pompous and stuffy.

The passive also puts the ostensible object first, emphasizing it, and it puts the subject at end of the clause, in position to become the subject of a following dependent clause; both of these situations might be just what you want.

And I'd rather read an occasional passive than some of the verbal shenanigans people have come up with in their attempts to avoid using it.

But getting back to the OP, yes, TSCC promotes passivity among its members, as evidenced by internal writing and speaking styles.

We were discussing the "shock treatment" that LDS leaders have tried to use as an aversion to same-sex attraction. Some idiot said "While OBVIOUS horrible mistakes were made..."

OK, who made the mistakes?

It wasn't admitted to me who made them.

If I remember correctly, this is the wording on Mormon monument at Mountain Meadows.

Yup, another form of "Things were done, no one was spared."

I forget where it was now, but the MMM historical marker was used as one of the world's most shameless uses of passive voice. Like you said, "The wagon train was attacked. People were killed..."

Your post reminded me of this scene from Jeeves & Wooster set at a speakeasy in New York City during prohibition. The cranky 20's guy answers through a little window he slides open in the door: "Wadda ya want?"

So Elohim could be like this guy. You must give him the right signs and tokens to get your booze! Temple attendance could go up.