Fiction Forge Indy: Verbs: Passive Gets Complicated

Sunday, October 15, 2017

Verbs: Passive Gets Complicated

REVIEW:

So, the basic make up the verb looks like this: to be + past participle.

Now, let’s make it more complicated. Lots more complicated.

Passive (be + participle) progressive (be + present participle [ing]) => be + being + participle

I am cooking dinner. => Dinner is being made (by me).

Dad was fixing the car. => The car was being fixed (by dad).

Perfect (have + participle) passive (be + participle) => have + been (participle form of be) + past participle

Julie has finished dinner. => Dinner has been finished (by Julie).

I had finished the book. => The book had been finished (by me).

Perfect progressive passive (very rare) =>

The students have been studying Chinese. => Chinese has been being studied (by the students).

The IRS has been auditing our records for two months. => Our records have been being audited for two months (by the IRS).

Couple of other complications:

Passive with "get" instead of "be":

My car got (was) fixed by my neighbor.

My cat got (was) killed by my neighbor (hmm).

How complicated can you make passive verbs? Any cool examples?

1 comment:

Randy WiremanOctober 23, 2017 at 9:01 AM
Orange is embarrassing the world. The world is being embarrassed by Orange. Gee, no matter how it's said, I get equally angry! :0)
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Mike

Hi. My name is Michael Moir and I'm a writer.

I don't know when I became addicted to the printed word, but over time I have found that I can't put it away from me. My therapist says it has to do with the little yellow books that were forced upon me in Kindergarten (See Spot Run...Run, Spot, Run! RUN!!!), but in the depth of my soul, I know it is deeper than that. I was born with this in my very DNA. Phrasing, grammar, and plot structure are as sure in my being as cytosine is to guanine. It is a dark and wildly fantastic creature that gires and gimbles in the shadowed places of my soul. I have been told that I must find a way to purge the wordful animal within (my therapist recommended me to a witch doctor in the Andes), but I have decided to learn to live with it. This desire, this compulsion, this demon that is writing is me and I am it.

I call him Steve.

Randy

Hi! I am Randy. I'm pretty sure that I started writing when I held my first crayola. Unfortunately, I grabbed the white one which left little proof of my brilliant earlier works! I write fiction that's often centered on gay characters - but sometimes off-centered gay characters, too -Ha! Because of the poor recording or admittance of such affairs due to prevailing political and religious views, such historical possibilities of gay relations are difficult to accept, let alone imagine. But, of course gay relations occurred, and much more often than the historical records dictate. I like to give honor to my gay brothers and sisters of our hushed past by conjuring such situation backdrops of history and breathing life into what I cannot know really occurred, but what I feel is closer to reality than it is to fiction.