UNS English Series, Online, Kano (2026)

17/08/2023

When you have (a person of) psychology, sociology, philosophy—and, gynaecology—to some extent, that's when you'll have a true earthly human!

—Umar Nasir Salisu

01/04/2023

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Coming Soon. In Shaa Allah!

15/03/2023

TIME TO CHECK FOR YOUR ANSWERS!

QUESTION: Switch the active sentence (A) into a passive voice; and the later (B), into active voice.

A: My Galaxy tab was made in America.
B: The result is expected at any moment.

A BRIEF REVIEW!
In the active voice sentence, the focus of the sentence is on what the subject did. In the passive voice sentence, the focus is shifted away from the original, and instead is refocused on what happened to the original object.

In the passive voice sentence, the original subject can be retrained as the object of the preposition "by". However, because the whole point of using the passive voice is to shift emphasis onto the original object and away from the original subject, it's quite common to delete the "by" phrase that contains the original subject. According to one study, about 85% of the passive sentences in non-fiction books and articles do not retain the "by" phrase.

Sometimes we use the passive precisely because we do not know (or even care) what the subject of the active sentence is. Reference to this, we can simply prefer the sentences we have given sentence (A and B) with the "by" deleted. Therefore, we can easily switch the A into passive, B into active, like this. 👇👇👇

A: My Galaxy tab was made in America. (ACTIVE)
Someone in America made my Galaxy tab. (PASSIVE)

B: The result is expected at any moment. (PASSIVE)
Everyone expects the result at any moment. (ACTIVE)

NOTE: The passive has a certain negative connotation for several reasons. First, the passive can be used evasively—to avoid naming the person actually responsible for an action. More to the point, when a politician uses the passive sentence "mistakes were made," you can be sure that the choice of the passive was deliberate. Second, writers can fall into the habit of using the passive where the active voice would be more vivid and, well, less passive. One of the first lessons in any writing class is making students aware of their needless use of the passive.

Thanks for reading!