Son of was deemed
The Guardian does its passive-aggressive thing:
The Royal Academy of Arts has apologised to an artist whose work was removed from its gift shop after it branded her views transphobic on social media, calling its initial decision a “betrayal” of its commitment to freedom of speech.
That’s an absolute car crash of a lede. The RA has apologised to an artist whose work was removed from its gift shop? What do they mean? Removed how, by whom, when? Did art thieves take it? Was there a smash and grab in the middle of the night? Did an employee of the gift shop take it home? Who removed the artist’s work?
The artist’s work was removed from its gift shop after it branded her views transphobic? The gift shop branded her views? Who cares what the gift shop thinks? And what is the connection between the removal and the branding? “After” tells us nothing except the chronology.
Her work was removed from its gift shop after it branded her views transphobic on social media? What was the gift shop doing branding her views on social media?
It’s absolutely crap writing and reporting, all in the passive voice with the actual agents rendered undetectable. Who did what?!
And this creepy evasive disappearance of agents and mention of anonymous “its” that could be the RA or the gift shop or a gang of thieves just underlines how cowardly and dishonest the Guardian is on this subject. As Orwell probably said a thousand times, writing this bad just screams of evasion.
Jess de Wahls, an embroidery artist based in London, became the focal point of the row after the Royal Academy decided to no longer stock her work after a 2019 blogpost – in which she outlined her views on gender identity politics – was deemed transphobic.
There it is again – that “was deemed.” That’s how they reported it in the beginning, and they must be pleased with the results, because there it is again. DEEMED BY WHOM?
And they hide the agency of the 8 people who “complained” to the RA while they somehow transfer the agency to Jess DeWahls. She “became the focal point of the row” – the hussy.
In a statement, the Royal Academy said it had mishandled the situation and that its internal communications had failed, which led to De Wahls hearing about the work being pulled via social media.
Yet another stupid badly-written evasive sentence.
They then quote from the statement and what DeWahls told them in response, and let us know that the culture secretary approves. Then –
De Wahls’s comments from 2019 are what led to accusations of transphobia, which the artist denied.
No her comments didn’t “lead to” the accusations. Some fanatics made the decision to punish her for her comments.
When the post was flagged, De Wahls’s embroidery work was removed from the Royal Academy gift shop, with the artist saying she was contacted by officials at organisation who told her they were investigating.
Who removed her work? Don’t just tell us it “was removed,” as if by magic invisible hands; spell it out.
And what gets the last word? In fact the two final paragraphs? None other than Peter Tatchell all over again – a reappearance of his response to the Guardian from a previous article. Why?? Why give the last word to Peter Tatchell? He’s not trans, and he’s a man, so his rights are not at stake in the way women’s rights are. Why give him the last word?
I recall that I was told in 8th grade composition classes to avoid passive voice, but here it seems very useful in separating the writer from responsibility for any untoward actions.
Re #1
A chuckle was heard in my vicinity after reading your comment. :-)
I was told the same thing, and also have seen it in many articles n books on writing. It actually shouldn’t be a blanket rule because sometimes the passive voice is called for, and other times it’s a stylistic choice, but it should be labeled (there, see, there it is now, and that wasn’t deliberate) USE WITH EXTREME CAUTION.
And above all do not do not so not use it to screen shitty behavior.
Actually I used it twice, both times without noticing – the passive voice is called for…it should be labeled.
I was about to say that in my job (administration) I do use the passive voice, but after a little thought, I realise I use the impersonal. Eg “There has been some confusion over the transfer of funds” i.e. you idiot clients, again you have sent the money to the wrong account.
Of course the most famous passive voice example is Kruschev’s “Mistakes have been made” about Stalin’s regime – though I don’t know if it reads the same in Russian.
My writer’s group had the problem of these absolutes. NEVER use passive voice. NEVER use contractions. NEVER use adjectives or adverbs.
It reminds me of a boss I once had who couldn’t figure out how to use commas so his teacher said NEVER use commas. That was a lot of fun when he grew up and I was the one editing his work…since his teacher apparently never told him don’t write run on sentences, and don’t put your modifiers in the wrong place.
Absolute rules in any art form (or business communication, for that matter) are dreck. I’ve read some of the writing of people who never use passive voice (because the protagonist always needs to be ACTIVE!:). Nope. Sometimes things happen TO us, we don’t do them, and passive voice can be the proper way to approach that. The NEVER use contractions? Wow. Speech becomes stilted and formal (I know, because I am currently writing a book series where one of the characters never uses contractions…and uses about 43 words to say it’s a nice day out).
Speaking of contractions, Terry Gross once talked to a movie-maker who had written (& I think directed too) a movie set in the 19th century US west – sort of classic Western but updated. They got into an extended discussion about style and authenticity and she said she’d noticed everybody spoke without contractions and he said yes that was one way to make it authentically 19th c. WHAT??? I thought. I consulted some 19th C novels. Guess what: they use’em.
So dumb it stuck in my mind.
@OB#7 T’was so then. T’is different now.
Here’s how a grand lady speaks in The Eustace Diamonds (1871)
“”They are family diamonds, Eustace diamonds, heirlooms,—old property belonging to the Eustaces, just like their estates. Sir Florian didn’t give ’em away, and couldn’t, and wouldn’t if he could. Such things ain’t given away in that fashion. It’s all nonsense, and you must give them up.”
Re #4
Also “I was told…”.
That was the formulation I found amusing in Michael’s post as well.
KBP @ 9 – hah! Yep. I think the first thing I grabbed to check was Little Women, probably because Jo gets grief for being so slangy. First page, isn’t & don’t all over the shop. (Your comment was held because different name; I changed it.)
Sackbut – ach, another! Sure enough, we can’t do without the passive. The passive can’t be done without by us.
Contractions not used in the 19th century? The Navy used ’em! It took me a couple of years to try to figure out that a f’o’c’s’l’e is actually a forecastle, and a wes’k’t is a waistcoat. (Perhaps that’s an 18th century thing.)
Yeah, I’m sure Shakespeare never used contractions, either. If twere done, tis well twere done quickly. And all that.
@Michael, that’s a very English thing. A bit like Wooster Sauce, Bo’sun, etc.
Even with English names, Cholmondeley is pronounced Chumley, however, Belmondeley is always pronounced Belmondeley. :-)
Iknklast @6, I have a couple of times reviewed technical consulting reports written by youngsters* who had just attended business writing courses. They were like a cross between a Dale Brown and Lee Child’s novel, but with no talent at all and no narrative arc. Plus bad grammar. When I asked why, they said they were trying to add life to the report, just like the tutor told them to**. Sigh.
* Anyone under 30 these days.
** I’ve done the same course – that is not what the tutor told them to do. “Avoid excessive passive voice and use plain, direct language wherever possible.”
Rob, that’s like an experience I had with a student last week. Many of the questions on the online test were marked wrong, because she put periods at the end of the fill-in-the-blanks questions (there were already periods there). She said “You told us to, so I did.” What I actually told them was to NOT put periods in the blanks, because the computer would count it wrong. Since there was already a period there, I count it as a grammatical error, which is only 0.1 off, but at least they notice it if they didn’t get full points.
One big problem is students using grammar check on Word. Word has no subtlety in grammar; it has a list of rules it applies, and often applies wrong. They don’t know how to check it for themselves, so they accept what Word tells them. What’s really funny is when they don’t check what they cut and pasted, and words will have a ‘u’ where we don’t put one, or other English usage that doesn’t match the US.
iknklast:
At least Word doesn’t misgender people, like Grammarly does… ;)
Ah, yes, stupid grammar rules. You could write books debunking them, and in fact several such books have been written.
The banishment of “ain’t” from “proper” English is my personal least favorite. It originated as a contraction of “am not” and then in some dialects was extended to “is not”, “are not”, “has not”, and “have not”. So I can sort of understand the reaction to this (over-)generalization*, but banishing it entirely means that in standard dialects (at least on this side of the pond) we’re reduced to making negative questions and tag questions using “Aren’t I…?”
*Frankly, I have no problem with that. English has been simplifying its verb forms for centuries; a few more conflations don’t really hurt communication.
It was better to say “Shit” than “Ain’t” in our school, now that I think about it.
There was a saying (line? chant?) going around when I was a kid: “Ain’t” ain’t a word so I ain’t gonna use it.
It occurs to me that the stupid grammar rule against “ain’t” has served to make it more valuable. It’s not just a bland synonym for “isn’t” or “aren’t” but also a special word that adds emphasis or a raffish note or a folksy note or dialect or a hundred other things. “IIIIIIIII ain’t gonna work on Maggie’s farm no more.”