A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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verb in the active voice, and The book is being carefully written by Jim still has its verb in the passive voice.
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Some passive constructions use get instead of be with a past participle. In some of these sentences the subject may have a somewhat active role even when being acted upon by the verb. Thus you might say The kitten got left in the basement, which is no different from The kitten was left in the basement. But the sentence Michelle got hired as a reporter implies that Michelle’s actions were instrumental in her securing the job. This passive with get is mostly limited to informal speaking and writing.
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There are a few transitive verbs—called middle verbs—that cannot normally be made passive, such as: fit, have, lack, resemble, and suit. Thus you can say That suit fits you but not You are fit by that suit; Our team lacks a good pitcher, but not A good pitcher is lacked by our team; and so on.
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One big reason for being aware of passive and active verbs in your writing is that overrelying on the passive voice can lead to prose that is boring, difficult to understand, and needlessly verbose. For more on these problems, see
passive voice under Style.
Why can you be very pleased with your raise but not very praised by your boss? In general usage very is not used alone to modify a past participle. Thus we may say of a book, for example, that it has been very much praised or very much criticized (where very modifies the adverb much), but not that it has been very praised or very criticized.
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However, many past participle forms do double duty as adjectives, in which case modification by a bare very, or by analogous adverbs such as quite, is acceptable. Thus we say a very celebrated singer and a performance that was quite polished. In some cases there is disagreement as to whether a particular participle can be used properly as an adjective. Over the years people have objected to the use of very by itself with delighted, interested, annoyed, pleased, disappointed, and irritated. All these words are now well established as adjectives, as indicated by the fact that they can be used attributively, that is, in juxtaposition to a noun they modify, as in a delighted audience, a pleased look, a disappointed young man.
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But the situation is not always clear. Some speakers accept phrases such as very appreciated, very astonished, or very heartened, while others prefer alternatives using very much. What is more, some participles allow treatment as adjectives in one sense but not another. You can speak of a very inflated reputation, for example, but not, ordinarily, of a very inflated tire. As a result, there is no sure way to tell which participles may be modified by a bare very, and you must trust your ear for what sounds natural. When in doubt, using very much is generally safer.
