On the Language Log Mark Liberman reports on a BBC crash blossom:
An English friend asked me how this might have been avoided. Retaining all the information given in the headline it is impossible in the available space but I suggested this to him:
Whales counted from space.
The scientists are relegated to the body text, but does that matter? They are the subject of the first sentence and anyway, saying in the headline that the counting is done by unidentified scientists hardly adds to our stock of knowledge.
Then later, as I thought about this, a curious idea occurred to me. In my passive alternative the scientists are removed from the headline because, being anonymous, they are not important at that stage of the information flow. One common reason for preferring the passive voice is precisely to focus on what would be the object of the equivalent active sentence, the identification of the agent being optional. The BBC has chosen an active sentence that leads to a crash blossom rather than a passive sentence that is clear and appropriate, and that tells us immediately that we are concerned with whales rather than scientists. Why should it make that choice? Could it be that this was a deliberate editorial decision to avoid the passive voice as a matter of policy and style?
* * * *
I can’t leave this topic of whales from space without mentioning the great Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Another thing that got forgotten was the fact that against all probability a sperm whale had suddenly been called into existence several miles above the surface of an alien planet.
And since this is not a naturally tenable position for a whale, this poor innocent creature had very little time to come to terms with its identity as a whale before it then had to come to terms with not being a whale any more.
For the whale’s thoughts as it fell, see YouTube.
Comments