This feature is most useful for identifying run-on sentences and use of the passive voice.
Unnecessary use of the passive voice.
At her house, I start again, from the beginning: conditional clauses, indirect discourse, the use of the passive.
"Each time I see a split infinitive," she is on record as saying, "an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister".
There is certainly some merit to this rule of thumb; some of the worst writing around suffers from inert verbs and the unintended use of the passive voice.
(Sample from "The Yellow Admiral": "You will put it into the proper Whitehall prose, scabrous, flat-footed, with much use of the passive, will you not?
The most pilloried use of the passive voice might be that famous expression of presidents and press secretaries, "mistakes were made".
He lists one as "the expression of regret," which is not quite an apology and is often recognizable by use of the passive voice (like Ronald Reagan's "mistakes were made" during the Iran-contra scandal).
Foster says that poem shares several of the hallmarks of Moore's writing, including frequent use of "dread," reliance on the adjective "various" and an unusual use of the passive form "seen". "Old Santaclaus" devoted four stanzas to castigating naughty children.
But it also produced such famous bits of insolence, as the exchange between Rick and Louis ("I came to Casablanca for the waters". "Waters? What waters? We're in the desert". "I was misinformed")., and, of course, the single best use of the passive voice in movie history: Rick plugs Strasser, and Renault says to his men, "Major Strasser has been shot.
Even the personal essays included here, like the long, mostly engaging piece on Boyd's boarding school experience, make extensive (and somewhat deadening) use of the passive voice: "Drugs were taken," "The female sex was judged by one criterion," etc. Temperament aside, however, Boyd's approach also reflects his most basic ideas about fiction and art.
