Humans hardwired to use the passive voice

[Arnold Zwicky]

note the date.

On Mar 31, 2014, at 8:35 PM, "Baron, Dennis E" <debaron at ILLINOIS.EDU> wrote:

> There's a new post on the Web of Language:
>
> Humans hardwired to use the passive voice
>
>
> The human brain is hardwired to prefer the passive voice. A definite predil=
> ection for passive constructions has been found by a team of neuroscientist=
> s led by Elaine Bao Weiss and W. Strang-Ng, postdoctoral researchers at Cor=
> nell University=92s Neurosyntax Imaging Laboratory.
>
> =93This was totally unexpected,=94 Bao Weiss said of the findings. =93Gener=
> ations of writers have been advised to prefer the active to the passive, bu=
> t that=92s not how the brain works.=94

arnold

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