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by helicalspiral 140 days ago
the article is literally going through the technical definition of passive voice
1 comments

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

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

Click around, you're in for a treat.

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