Working On Verbs

I have a tough time with verbs.  Or at least now I do.  In the past I didn't really think that they were all that involved.  Or that the world of the verb went as deep as it actually does.  I had previously just thought that a verb was pretty much a word to describe action.  I just hadn't really given it much thought beyond that.  On the other hand, t has been a long time since my last English class.

One of the areas that particularly confuses me is the active/passive voice.  I really had to sit here and critically think about the differences, and I'm still not completely sure that I have it pegged.  The text cites that "When writers use passive voice, they create awkward prose and powerless, stilted sentences with weakened verbs."  However, I've read, written, and spoken countless amounts of passive voice sentences thinking that everything was just fine.   The only way I was able to grasp the concept was to simplify it in my brain.  Things become more clear when you search the sentence for a realized subject which may out of place, or not there at all.  The trick is to remove all human assumption from the sentence and simply process it exactly how it appears.  Our textbook’s visual layout of active vs. passive voice construction helped a lot:

Active Construction

who                        did what                                    to whom

Passive Construction

who                        had what done to it                   by whom

I also still find transitive and intransitive verbs confusing as well.  But I think the answer may be more easily found if the term ‘transitive’ is broken down to the term ‘transit.’  This helps me realize that a transitive verb moves action from the subject to a direct object.  It’s still going to take some practice.

Although I’m trying really hard, I’m still not very good at being able to identify editing errors in professional writing.  It’s not automatic quite yet even though I do try and be as conscious about seeing them as possible.