The action was insisted on/The car was boasted about.

[Vladv1]

1.He insisted on the action/The action was insisted on.
2.He boasted about the car/The car was boasted about.
Could you please explain why the first pair sounds perfect in the passive and the second does not. Does it have to do with the nature of the verb?

 

[emsr2d2]

1. space here He insisted on the action/The action was insisted on.
2. space here He boasted about the car/The car was boasted about.

Put a space after every full stop (except when using it as a decimal point between numbers or in a website address).

Could you please explain why the first pair sounds perfect in the passive and the second does not?

The first doesn't sound natural. You'll hear BrE speakers say "It was insisted upon" but not your version. Technically, they're both grammatically correct but they both sound very awkward.

Does it have to do with the nature of the verb?

What do you mean by that? What "nature" of verb are "insist" and "boast"?

 

[Vladv1]

Put a space after every full stop (except when using it as a decimal point between numbers or in a website address).

The first doesn't sound natural. You'll hear BrE speakers say "It was insisted upon" but not your version. Technically, they're both grammatically correct but they both sound very awkward.

What do you mean by that? What "nature" of verb are "insist" and "boast"?

I was taught that if a verb does not change the nature of the subject, then passive is not needed. "The car is boasted about" sounds off because there is no impact on the car.

 

[Vladv1]

Put a space after every full stop (except when using it as a decimal point between numbers or in a website address).

The first doesn't sound natural. You'll hear BrE speakers say "It was insisted upon" but not your version. Technically, they're both grammatically correct but they both sound very awkward.

What do you mean by that? What "nature" of verb are "insist" and "boast"?

Does it sound good? The miracle was wished for.

 

[5jj]

I was taught that if a verb does not change the nature of the subject, then passive is not needed.

The passive is rarely 'needed'.
'The nature of the subject (whatever that may mean) is not changed in such natural sentences as His speeches were widely condemned/admired.

"The car is boasted about" sounds off because there is no impact on the car.

It sounds off because the active George boasted about his car is far more natural.

 

[5jj]

The miracle was wished for.

It's grammatical.

 

[Annabel Lee]

I was taught that if a verb does not change the nature of the subject, then passive is not needed. "The car is boasted about" sounds off because there is no impact on the car.

The passive is often used when the agent is irrelevant. I find the following to be pretty interchangeable:

​

Having good health isn't anything to boast about. (active)​

Having good health isn't anything about which to boast. (active)​

Having good health isn't anything to be boasted about. (passive)​

​

Having good health is nothing for one to boast about. (active)​

Having good health is nothing to boast about. (active)​

Having good health is nothing about which to boast. (active)​

Having good health is nothing to be boasted about. (passive)​

 

[5jj]

Having good health isn't anything to boast about. (active) Having good health is nothing to boast about. (active)

I find those natural.

Having good health is nothing for one to boast about. (active) Having good health isn't anything about which to boast. (active) Having good health is nothing about which to boast. (active)​

I find those less natural..

Having good health isn't anything to be boasted about. (passive)​

Having good health is nothing to be boasted about. (passive)​

Those sound unnatural to me.

 

[Annabel Lee]

Those sound unnatural to me.

Well, here's a somewhat similar example from a published source that seems to be by a native English speaker and that doesn't seem to me to be poorly written. I am, however, adding a comma after the "if"-clause:

• "In any case, a gentleman does not boast; if there is anything to be boasted about, someone else will always do it for one" (Malcolm Bradbury, The Collected Works, 2018)

 

[5jj]

I didn't say that all examples of 'boast about' in the passive were poorly written. I said that a couple of your examples sounded unnatural to me.

 

[Skrej]

I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that one could easily go their entire life without truly NEEDING to use the passive. Possibly even without using it at all.

And I don't even really like donuts.

 

[Annabel Lee]

I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that one could easily go their entire life without truly NEEDING to use the passive. Possibly even without using it at all.

I tell my students that the one case where EVERYBODY uses the passive is with bear in reference to birth:

When were you born? (natural)​

When did your mother bear you? (almost incomprehensibly unnatural)​

But I think it's also hard not to find the passive desirable in cases like these:

Have you ever been stung by a bee? (natural)​

Has a bee ever stung you? (less natural)​

​

Have you been baptized? (natural)​

Has a priest or pastor baptized you? (less natural)​

​

Has the school been accredited? (natural)​

Has an accreditor accredited the school? (less natural)​

​

Regarding the last pair, it would, of course, be possible to use the adjectival Is the school accredited? instead.

 

[Annabel Lee]

. . . one could easily go their entire life without truly NEEDING to use the passive.

Living without the passive would also mean having to dodge all "reduced" passives in participial relative clauses (the items delivered yesterday, the measures voted on, the sights seen, etc.) as well as implied passives in attributive constructions (chocolate-dipped cones, hard-boiled eggs, hand-written letters, etc.). Not easy!

 

[Glizdka]

The passive is often used when the agent is irrelevant.

Even though this is probably the most common reason to use the passive, I believe that it's situations in which the agent is unknown or unknowable that represent the best case scenario for the passive.

Multiple priceless antiques were stolen from the museum over a month ago, and the police have yet to find any clue that would lead to the culprit.

Göbekli Tepe was built some eleven thousand years ago by an unknown civilization that existed long before the Sumerians.

The Voynich Manuscript is written in an unknown script that puzzles linguists and cryptographers alike.

 

[jutfrank]

Could you please explain why the first pair sounds perfect in the passive and the second does not.

I'm curious as to why you often seem so confident that certain sentences 'sound perfect' and others don't. How can you know this? What makes you so presumptuous?