[Grammar] Everything is known about the accident.

[Son Ho]

Hi, everyone. These are two passive sentences changed from the active one. Could you please check them? Is the sentence 2 or 3 correct?

1. John knows everything about the accident.
2. Everything about the accident is known.
3. Everything is known about the accident.

 

[emsr2d2]

Whilst both 2 and 3 are in the passive, 2 is the more natural. However, you haven't included all the information from sentence 1 in sentences 2 and 3. Consequently, you have changed the meaning.

 

[Tdol]

To change it into the passive and keep all the information, you'd have Everything is known about the accident by John, which is a terrible sentence.

 

[Son Ho]

I think the sentence 2 is never used in workbooks because it is grammatically incorrect, isn't it? It also sounds weird. I don't know when we should put everything about the accident or just everything at the beginning of the sentence as a subject in passive voice.

 

[emsr2d2]

I think the sentence 2 is never used in workbooks because it is grammatically incorrect, isn't it? It also sounds weird. I don't know when we should put everything about the accident or just everything at the beginning of the sentence as a subject in passive voice.

Why do you want to? Is this an exercise from a workbook? If so, you need to tell us the name of the book and the author(s).

 

[GoesStation]

1. John knows everything about the accident.
2. Everything about the accident is known.
3. Everything is known about the accident.

I think [STRIKE]the[/STRIKE] sentence 2 is never used in workbooks because it is grammatically incorrect, isn't it? It also sounds weird.

No, it's correct and natural as written. It becomes unnatural if you add "by John" to it to make it contain the same information as the original, but it would still be grammatically correct.

 

[Tdol]

Converting things to the passive is my least favourite exercise type- if it works in the active, leave it. We use the passive for reasons, not as an alternative to the active.

 

[Rover_KE]

I bookmarked this post from Piscean on the passive in October 2013:


When/if we use the passive, it is generally because:

- We don't know who the agent is, or the agent is not important:

Ruth Ellis was hanged in 1955. She was the last woman to be executed in Great Britain.

Here, the person who performed the execution is known to some (but not many) people, but he is unimportant. What is important is the hanging of this woman.


-We may wish not to place importance on the agent:

I'm afraid your application for a loan has been declined.

Possibly the speaker rejected it himself, but would rather not admit this.
- In academic writing, especially in scientific writing, the passive gives an impersonal, objective impression:

The passive is rarely used in informal conversation.


People who use the passive for one of these, or for some other reason, generally produce the sentences in the passive. They do not produce an active sentence and then transform it. I loathe transformation exercises in coursebooks. They often result in very unnatural sentences.