The Big Bad Book Blog

Passive voice: one of the most commonly vilified, frequently bemoaned, and terminally misunderstood constructions in English. Yes, it’s true—the active voice is more vigorous, more forceful, more natural, and simpler in many cases. Sentences like “The book was put down by Mary” or “The dog was walked by my brother yesterday” make sensitive listeners shudder. But passive voice has its place. Here are a few situations where I’m willing to fight for it: continue reading

Picture the worst English teacher you ever had. The one who made you diagram sentences and say “May I” instead of “Can I” and never, ever laughed, even if you packed five vocabulary words into one demonstration sentence. The one who made you read The Scarlet Letter. The one who told you that everything you wrote from that moment forward had to have an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion to sum up your claims, preferably beginning, “In conclusion . . .”

How would you like to break some rules you learned in that class? What if it turned out that you never really needed to follow them in the first place?

Here are some of the lies your English teacher may have told you—grammar “rules” that are simply myths perpetuated through hearsay and folklore and transmitted to generations of students. Let the deception stop with you. continue reading