Microsoft grammar check keeps telling me I have a passive voice | Eastern North Carolina Now

   For the Record, I am not the clown that has been seen in South and North Carolina recently. The clown suit is long gone and no longer fits but the persona remains. Bobby Tony  

 Not one friend or relative of mine thinks that I am a passive person, but Microsoft Word says that I am and who can argue with Bill Gates.

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   English was not my best subject in school.  I hated it and hated it even worse when I took Latin, which I was told would help me understand English.  You see they used to think that you needed to know Latin to be a doctor, lawyer, or beggar man thief.  My Latin teacher was a Mrs. Elizabeth Smith who spoke with a heavy French Accent. I think the "Smith" part was a ruse to keep me from noticing.  I could not understand her in English much less Latin.  Alas, being a doctor was not in my deck of cards.  I was required by my English teachers to learn how to diagrams sentences.  I was never a good artist and drawing a straight line without a ruler was way beyond my skill level.

I managed to muddle through both Latin and English with out much enthusiasm. But several notes between teachers and my mom indicated that I was not taking the courses seriously.  

Calm down now Mrs? Kathryn Mercer, I am doing just fine. I am not sure if it was being an English teacher or the fact she graduated from Emory is the problem. Both will warp your personality.

   I blame most of my English problems on the fact that "Common People" can express themselves in speech without knowing a damn thing about dangling participles, or prepositions, adverbs and adjectives.  As a child I was surrounded by quite a few common people. 

   One word of caution here though.  A quote often attributed to Abraham Lincoln is that "The lord must have loved the common man because he made so many of them." That may sound great in an internet MEME with a picture of Abe but if you want to get your butt whipped just try to tell someone he is nothing more than a "COMMON MAN."

   My dislike of basic English grammar gradually eroded.  I was told to write proper memos, reports and eventually the thousands of emails that made the industrial world go around.  My saving grace was the discovery of English literature.  I did enjoy reading about the adventures of the knights and various other exploits of the past.  However, as a "common boy" I must admit I have been overwhelmed with the Bard, Chaucer and Middle English Vernacular.  Fortunately I was advised to find an interpretation by a "common man' in the Cliff's notes.  Old Cliff really had a way with words and meaning.  He actually wrote in plain English.

   I have come by my plain spoken English honestly.    Like all things in my life that people find fault with, I blame my dad.  He spoke in plain English without 'beating around the bush' or the Middle English Vernacular.

   Before it was politically incorrect to use the term, there was an expression used to explain plain English. For the record, spade refers to a shovel. Get your mind out of the gutter Hillary.

"Calling a spade and spade"

I blame all my problems on my dad because he was probably the most politically incorrect person I have ever known.  It wasn't just a spade to him.

"It was a f#&%in spade"

I rest my case. I was told by Microsoft that I had several passive voice phrases in this article.  I have highlighted in red the phrases just to pi$$ off Bill and Melinda Gates, whom I was told are not "Common People."


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Comments

( September 14th, 2016 @ 9:57 am )
 
You should avoid bad grammar. It does not like minimalist.

( September 14th, 2016 @ 9:39 am )
 
My Grammarly plugin to MS likes complete sentences. Go figure.
( September 13th, 2016 @ 10:36 am )
 
a period is used when you are through a comma when you need to take a breath all others are used just to break the flow as needed now bold and color does add to the interest level i have contemplated writing an article with all bold with only a few non bold letters to see if it will increase readership but some people tell me that is like shouting which of course i would never do that, comma

( September 13th, 2016 @ 10:27 am )
 
Does punctuation make a story interesting?
( September 13th, 2016 @ 9:54 am )
 
My normal response when a real person points out an error in my writing is:

"Thanks for being my editor, that is why I don't bother to do it myself".

Once a Smarta$$ always a Smarta$$. (your spell checker highlighted two words in the previous sentence. I chose to ignore it.)
( September 13th, 2016 @ 9:45 am )
 
What do you think Microsoft Grammar would have told Thomas Wolfe?

I'm sure there would have been something in there about "run-on sentences".
( September 13th, 2016 @ 7:43 am )
 
My apologies to KMP for any pejorative statements I may have made about English teachers. I was exaggerating for the sake of humor. I don't apologize about the Emory part though.



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