Transitive verbs possess a voice that describes the relationship between the subject and the action of the verb.

Verbs in the active voice place the actor of the action in the subject role and the person or thing that is acted upon sits in the object position.

These are sentences that contain verbs in the active voice:

Andy throws the baton.

The octogenarian plays the harp

The performers of the action—Andy and the octogenarian—are the subjects of the sentence, and the things acted upon—the baton and the harp—are the objects.

The situation is reversed in the passive voice. The previous object that is acted upon becomes the subject, and the actor finds himself in a prepositional phrase beginning with "by" or is excised from the sentence altogether:

The baton was thrown (by Andy)

The harp was played (by the octogenarian).

Regular use of the passive voice without a specific contextual cause is awkward, wordy, and unnecessarily, well, passive.

C. Mood

E. Sample Questions