Mastodawn

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@mekkaokereke/116184060048303307

Considering how often the NYT in particular does this, despite being frequently called out for it, I can only conclude that it is a very deliberate choice. It's not as if journalism schools don't teach about how the passive case is used to deflect and evade. So when a journalist who has graduated from a journalism school and possibly even won a Pulitzer uses the passive case this way, they do so intentionally to deflect and evade.

Show thread

Flock of Cats 🐈 🐈 🐈 ❄️Mar 7

@RachelThornSub

On topic: yeah they knew what they were doing

Off topic: the headline is active voice but obfuscates the agent and I didn’t know the grammar name for how they did it — apparently it is a “middle construction”

Active voice: Republicans filled the room with slurs
Passive voice: The room was filled with slurs
Middle construction: The room filled with slurs

Some languages have a proper morphological middle voice but English doesn’t, so it is done via sentence structure 🤓

Show thread

Prof. Rachel Thorn 🍉🇺🇦🏳️‍⚧️🏳️

@FlockOfCats Yes, I realized that as I was typing, but I went with the term most folks know. Passive or middle, it's obfuscation where no person is the subject of the sentence.