These things happen
A former UKIP councillor has been found guilty of murdering his wife, after he had an affair with their son’s partner.
Stephen Searle, 64, strangled his wife Anne at their home in Stowmarket, Suffolk, on 30 December.
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Searle had previously told a jury his wife had uncovered his affair with Ms Pomiateeva, who is the mother to at least one of their grandchildren, months before she died.
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Following the verdict, former politician Bill Mountford told BBC Suffolk he still considered Searle “a friend”, adding “these things happen”.
Mr Mountford, who was leader of UKIP at Suffolk County Council when Searle was a councillor, said: “I still regard Steve as fundamentally a decent man who has found himself in circumstances beyond his control.
“I’m not condoning it in any way but I was very, very sad to hear of Steve’s conviction.
“I’m well aware domestic disputes can get out of hand but I feel equally sorry for both Steve and his now deceased wife.”
Yeah. It’s so sad for him, and she was probably a total bitch about it.
These things happen.
They just sort of… happen. To fundamentally decent men who find themselves in circumstances beyond [their] control.
No agency attributed to the guy at all. It just happened, like an earthquake.
Boys will be boys. They can’t control their urges, so women should avoid crossing them or tempting them, but if we fail to trust them, well, that’s just being a bit too prejudiced, isn’t it?
The caveat being that we cross them and tempt them just by existing, so we should really just cease to exist, leaving our eggs behind so they can implant them in sex dolls to bear their children (all male, of course).
So, he’s a friend and a decent guy, but sometimes he just up and murders his spouse. It’s, what, like some peculiar tic? If you cannot keep yourself from murdering and/or raping folks, you aren’t a decent guy – this shouldn’t be hard stuff.
“I’m not condoning it in anyway…” (However my friend Steve was very angry at the time)
“… his now deceased wife” (She just happened to die)
Of course she’s deceased, Steve made her deceased
Why did he feel the need to say that?
The emergency call is particularly sickening.
I haven’t listened to it. Can’t stomach it.
Let’s just say that for a guy who’d just committed murder of his wife of 45 years, he seemed neither bothered by that or to consider it terribly serious.
The curmudgeon Theodore Dalrymple, was a prison psychiatrist. His top example of this kind of passive-voice evasion was hearing a convict say: ‘the knife went in.’
Oh, he’s written a book with that title:
Dalrymple doesn’t seem to notice that the same trick is available to those insulated from normal legal consequences too.
John, I think that pattern is common in people trying to avoid blame of any sort. Students frequently utilize it in describing why they didn’t get their assignment done or why they didn’t come to class. Children use it when they are in trouble. I’ve heard speeders use it: “the car went over the speed limit”, because cars do that all by themselves all the time.
As a writer, I am cautioned to avoid passive voice (though I do use it when the lack of action on the protagonist’s part is important, and the lack of power over the events surrounding her/him needs to be expressed – see, I just did it myself, because the use of passive voice in my works just happens, and I don’t do it, even on those occasions when it is necessary).
I am glad to note that at least some biology fields are moving away from passive voice. “The experiment happened, we couldn’t really help it, so the results were recorded, which we didn’t do but somehow it happened, and then they were analyzed, which no one did, it just showed up on our computers one day. Then the conclusions were drawn by the ephemeral aether and landed in the paper, which was written. Our names were put on the paper, and it was sent to the publication, where it was published.
So his wife died, because she died, because something something…very sorry…very good guy…something something…well, she was probably a bitch anyway.
That’s not the passive voice though. “The experiment happened” is active voice, as is “she died.” What’s going on there is the occlusion of the agent, rather than the passive voice.
The passive voice gets a bad rap from Manuals for Writers, including Strunk and White. It can get clunky fast so it’s a good idea not to use it for everything, but it’s also not a good idea to avoid it nervously. Good writing needs variety, and rhythm, and music, and the unexpected. Sometimes the passive just works better.
But when agency is being systematically concealed? Be very suspicious.
Definitely. Something I try to convince my writer’s groups…also that adverbs and adjectives are not inherently bad, just the overuse or misuse of them, and that dialogue should include contractions if that is the normal way that speaker would speak.
One frequent reason to use the passive is emphasis – as in, say, “It was the civilians who were tortured” if you’re clearing up a misunderstanding. That kind of construction comes up all the time, and we can’t possibly do without it, yet we still hear people saying “avoid the passive!!” as if it were gospel. Drives me nuts.