[jkingsbery]

The examples in the first paragraph, while not grammatically passive, are functionally passive. They would be stronger in most cases if the author wrote them with the actor as the subject. For example, yes "the bus blew up" is active, but does not answer who acted on the bus.

Being so pedantic, and then saying "but I'm not going to use the technical term voice" is particularly off-putting. If this is an article about grammatical pedentry, let's go all the way. Otherwise, the author should focus on providing useful advice.

[Sharlin]

The phrasal verb "blow up" can be either transitive or intransitive.

"The bus blew up" is a perfectly active clause. "The bus" is the subject, it did its own blowing-up.

"The bus was blown up" is a passive clause. "The bus" is the object, some unnamed entity acted on the bus.

[wrqvrwvq]

For completeness, the transitive active might be "The terrorist blew up the bus". In the intransitive case you can infer the reflexive case (agent acting upon itself), "The bus blew itself up". Some languages have a formal "middle voice" for reflexion.

English lacks a formal middle and there is a good deal of established literature on verbal aspects where the subject is not really the agent called "ergative".

There is utility in comparing "the bus exploded", perhaps unclear as to the agent, but language is not an agent game. It's trying to convey information, which is clear enough in these cases.

[tptacek]

I like "the bus blew up the terrorist" as a clearer illustration. :P

[direwolf20]

grammatically active, functionally passive, exactly as GP said

[yongjik]

The whole point of the article is that there's no such thing like "functionally passive" and people will invariably twist themselves into knots if they actually try to give it a, let's say, functional definition.

You could simply say "You must be clear who did what" and it would be as good an advice as any, but people have to shove in "passive" into the advice, which serves no purpose and just makes things more confusing.

[helicalspiral]

The author is a linguist where passive has a technical definition and implicitly wishes that people would use some other word for what they have an issue with.

[tptacek]

How is it even functionally passive?

[direwolf20]

It doesn't tell you who blew up the bus

[Sharlin]

A bus can blow up of its own accord if, for example, its fuel tank explodes. There's no need for an external agent.

[tptacek]

The volcano erupted.

Is that passive?

[direwolf20]

No, the volcano caused the eruption. Who caused the bus explosion? You are fixated on the grammatical parse tree instead of the reality conveyed by the grammar, what happened in the universe and what information is conveyed.

[helicalspiral]

the article is literally going through the technical definition of passive voice

[arduanika]

Sure, but he is packaging it in this superior snark. He is aggressively dismissing the very real thing that people actually mean when they say "avoid passive voice". A technical explainer on its own would be fine, but at least to my ears, this piece reads as narrow-minded and bitter.

[tptacek]

Their snark sounds superior because they are superior. It's Language Log.

[arduanika]

Huh, I don't know much about this site. Maybe I should. From reading up on the author, it looks like this is where they invented the term "snowclone", which is pretty cool I guess.

But this particular article rubs me the wrong way, for whatever reason. It just seems to miss the point.

[tptacek]

Hugely influential. The original and ur-English language linguistics site. Geoffrey Pullum & co.

Click around, you're in for a treat.

[arduanika]

Okay, I trust your recommendation. Maybe I'll come back to it in a couple days when I'm in a less grouchy mood.