Friday, September 11, 2009

You use active verbs!

After getting over my initial shock, I'm now oddly attracted to the simple directness of "You lie!" It's certainly superior to its passive equivalent, "I am (or we are) lied to!" This is what I tell clients all the time: active voice shows you accomplish things, whereas passive voice shows you are content to let the world do what it will, with or without you.

It's too bad there is no verb in English that means the opposite of "to lie." "I speak truth" is, I suppose, the closest we can get. I think we need one. How about a contest?

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