back to article Linus Torvalds declares war on the passive voice

Linux chieftain Linus Torvalds was spotted getting a bit worked up over grammar on Sunday night on the Linux Kernel Mailing List. While Torvalds is known for getting ticked off about coding, this time he was lambasting the grammatical rather than the coding syntax of contributors. The problem? Devs' use of the passive voice. …

  1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

    He's right, of course

    The importance of using the active voice cannot be emphasized enough.

    1. Dostoevsky Bronze badge

      Re: He's right, of course

      It appears my idea was stolen by you.

      1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

        Re: He's right, of course

        Have you been upset by this?

      2. Bill Gray

        Re: He's right, of course

        I suspect about 50% of us came here to make that post. I first came across it from a list of 'fumblerules', I think collected by William Safire circa 1980, that included :

        Don't use no double negatives.

        Sentences should a verb.

        One will never have used the future perfect in one's entire life.

        Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read and figure out.

        I've told you a thousand times : avoid hyperbole.

        (plus quite a bit more not currently coming to mind)

        1. Homo.Sapien.Floridanus

          Re: He's right, of course

          Problem with this, I see not.

          -Yoda

      3. bombastic bob Silver badge
        Trollface

        Re: He's right, of course

        Those of us who understand the snark can be heard laughing

    2. abend0c4 Silver badge

      Re: He's right, of course

      It's a pity English doesn't really have reflexive forms, found in other languages, that substitute for the passive, because:

      the Xyzzy driver error handling fixes itself to avoid a NULL pointer dereference

      would also deal neatly with the shortage of kernel maintainers.

      1. Spoobistle

        Re: He's right, of course

        > the Xyzzy driver error handling fixes itself...

        Self-modifying code?

        1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

          Re: He's right, of course ...... but like in every time, probably only just for now

          > the Xyzzy driver error handling fixes itself...

          Self-modifying code? .....Spoobistle

          You might like to realise if you have been paying attention and learning about all of these new fangled and quantum entangling things that El Reg is freely presenting to you daily for both Day and 0Day Trading, the situation for publishing has moved on and into the surreal realms of inhabitable existentialism with *SMARTR AI Technology exercising Global Command Head Quarter Control to entertain and exploit ITs Almighty Alien Advantage, the Resultant Product of its AIMastery and Relevant Field Utilisation of Remote Universal Virtual Language Leverage.

          * ..... SMARTR Mentoring Analysis Reporting Titanic Research for Advanced IntelAIgents

      2. LionelB Silver badge
        Boffin

        Re: He's right, of course

        Out of interest, is there a technical term for a pointer that points to itself?

        1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

          Re: He's right, of course

          Pictures of a cat chasing its own tail come to mind...

          1. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: He's right, of course

            I've seen cats chase imaginary prey, but tail chasing? [that WOULD be something fun to see, though]

            1. Geoffrey W

              Re: He's right, of course

              How do you know it's imaginary? Just coz you can't see it means nothing. There are lots of unseen things in the Universe. Cat's know more than those inscrutable eyes let on. Cats might be guardians*** and doG (sic) knows where I'd be now if I didn't let mine live here.

              *** Guardians of what though: The keeper of the can opener?

            2. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

              Re: He's right, of course

              You've never seen my cat.

        2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

          Re: He's right, of course

          What (in C) would be its type?

          1. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Devil

            Re: He's right, of course

            In C++, maybe this->this (would that even work?)

            or perhaps *(&(this)) or &(this[0])

            [now my brain hurts]

            1. swm

              Re: He's right, of course

              class X {

              }

              X::X::X::X();

          2. Julian Bradfield

            Re: He's right, of course

            void *p;

            p = &p;

            is perfectly good C.

        3. homeschoolu

          Re: He's right, of course

          A pointer that points to itself?

          As an English teacher with some experience in several non-eurocentric languages, for years I have searched for a word that refers to itself.

          I've never found one.

          An appropriate label or technical term for a self-pointing pointer may to be in the same category as technical terms or labels such as 'Easter Bunny' and 'Tooth Fairy'.

          Mom noted that when I point my index finger at someone else, I am the 'Pointer', and that then I have three more fingers in my palm that are pointing at me.

          Fortunately, perhaps, absolutely none of the words are that to which they refer.

          Point taken.

          1. steelpillow Silver badge

            a word that refers to itself

            "Noun"?

          2. bombastic bob Silver badge
            Linux

            Re: He's right, of course

            GNU = "GNU's Not Unix" does that help?

            1. steelpillow Silver badge

              Re: He's right, of course

              What about words which reference themselves indirectly?

              HIRD: HURD of Interfaces Representing Depth

              HURD: HIRD of UNIX Replacing Daemons

          3. rafff

            Re: He's right, of course

            "I have searched for a word that refers to itself."

            In a logic text book I once read the word is "homologous". "Heterologous" denotes a word that does not refer to itself. Clearly, there are no other possibilities.

            "Short" is a short word, and so is homologous; "long" is not a long word and so is heterologous. But what about "Heterologous" itself? If "heterologous" is heterologous then it does not refer to itself and so must be homologous. But if it is homologous then it does refer to itself and so is heterologous.

            1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

              Re: He's right, of course

              There's a Dr Gödel here who would like to have a word with you.

              1. Antron Argaiv Silver badge

                Re: He's right, of course

                ...and he's followed by a guy who is in the process of drawing his other hand, and a guy who keeps humming catchy tunes.

            2. Madre O'Fender

              Re: He's right, of course

              Bertrand Russell was onto something, then.

          4. Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world

            Re: He's right, of course

            > As an English teacher with some experience in several non-eurocentric languages, for years I have searched for a word that refers to itself.

            > I've never found one.

            How ironic then that you use one in your comment - English. (Or was that deliberate?) ;-)

            There aren't a huge number of autological words, but they're by no means rare. E.g. polysyllabic, olde.

          5. Bebu
            Windows

            Re: He's right, of course

            "A pointer that points to itself?"

            I recall this was used as a sentinel yonks ago instead of NULL (0) to mark end of list etc etc

            1. Tom 38

              Re: He's right, of course

              Technically, NULL is a pointer that points at itself too

              1. LionelB Silver badge

                Re: He's right, of course

                Surely not: a NULL pointer is actually a thing - a thing that points at no-thing, and therefore cannot possibly point at itself.

          6. Emir Al Weeq

            Re: He's right, of course

            Sesquipedalian

        4. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: a technical term for a pointer that points to itself

          Ouroboros

          1. Cruachan Bronze badge

            Re: a technical term for a pointer that points to itself

            Or Dave Lister if you're of a certain generation

          2. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

            Re: a technical term for a pointer that points to itself

            Undergraduate linked-list ?

        5. David 132 Silver badge

          Re: He's right, of course

          >is there a technical term for a pointer that points to itself?

          May I nominate, "an Ouroboros Pointer"?

        6. coconuthead

          Re: He's right, of course

          “self-referencing”

        7. Rol

          Re: He's right, of course

          I would proffer "me" in the world of self promotional social media videos that labour the "me me" has since been shortened to just "meme"

        8. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: He's right, of course

          >"Out of interest, is there a technical term for a pointer that points to itself?"

          Hung process?

        9. Paul 195

          Re: He's right, of course

          It's of type *ouroboros

        10. ZoranGrbic

          Re: He's right, of course

          “Point-pointer?”

      3. Antron Argaiv Silver badge
        Happy

        Re: He's right, of course

        the Xyzzy driver error handling fixes itself to avoid a NULL pointer dereference,

        Nothing happens here.

    3. bombastic bob Silver badge
      Megaphone

      Re: He's right, of course

      all snark aside...

      I think that using 'passive voice' is an attempt by many to "soften" certain declarative language constructs, similar to using a euphemism.

      Some people have told me that speaking authoritatively, or "sounding certain", or even being CONFIDENT, "comes across" [their words; translation 'sparks envy'] for many [translation: snowflakes] as somehow 'aggressive', 'angry', or (in MY bombastic opinion) just MASCULINE.

      So I expect that along the way, many of our teachers (and others who had influence) subtly ENCOURAGED us to use a "more passive" grammar style to "soften our tone" (read: sound wimpy and unsure, much like 'up talking') to avoid offending [read: scaring] others [read: snowflakes and overgrown babies].

      But science, engineering, and computer programming are (more often than not) VERY certain, precise, and declarative things. And saying "This fixes bug X" is concise and precise and certain.

      1. LionelB Silver badge

        Re: He's right, of course

        A potential problem with "sounding certain" and being CONFIDENT is whether the speaker actually has a legitimate basis for said "certainty" and CONFIDENCE. So, depending on the speaker, subject and circumstance, "certainty" and CONFIDENCE may well "come across" as unwarranted bombast (is there any other kind?) thus sparking derision rather than envy. Personally, I attach more weight to evidence of thoughtfulness - evidence that the opiner actually has a clue. Precision and concision are good; shouting does not make them better.

  2. Moldskred

    "Linux contributors told to sort out their grammar lest they be actively corrected."

    We see what you did there.

    1. Dev_Fit
      Trollface

      That is something up with which you should not put

      1. LionelB Silver badge

        Or even: That is something up with which should not be put.

  3. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

    So there you have it, folks. Simple ambiguity-killing declarative sentences or imperative phrases – you can't beat 'em. ®

    I couldn’t agree more. Such makes even the most complex of novel tasks so much easier for a great many more to clearly not misunderstand and then subsequently serially misinform and disenfranchise future readers and present viewers a’listening to current thoughts one might consider worthy of a wider knowing and absolutely fabulous world wide web sharing.

    1. m4r35n357 Silver badge

      Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

      That was nicely put!

      1. Jonathan Richards 1 Silver badge
        Meh

        Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

        > nicely put

        Up to a point. 'to clearly not misunderstand' is an egregiously split infinitive, and there's a mismatched single-quote, too. Someone needs to tweak the prompt template.

        1. Someone Else Silver badge

          Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

          Consider the source, @Jonathan Richards 1

        2. rafff

          Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

          "'to clearly not misunderstand' is an egregiously split infinitive"

          Split infinitives are only a venial sin in English. See Fowler's Modern English Usage (Gowers edition, not Burchfield, which IMO is useless). The real fault is that the adverb should normally come after the verb or adjective it modifies. But there are exceptions: "only" can come almost anywhere in a sentence. In all other cases in English the modifier come before the head item that it modifies: preposition-noun, subject-verb, adjective-noun.

          Other languages have different patterns. I believe that Hungarian is strictly postfix.

          </grammar nazism>

          1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

            Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

            Stand up for your right to confidently split infinitives!

            It is perfectly clear and grammatical English. Pedants only started complaining about it when someone pointed out that it is impossible to split infinitives in Latin, and therefore renders such an English sentence impossible to directly translate into Latin.

            English people were doing it since before those Vikings-masquerading-as-Frenchmen invaded from Normandy, bringing their -er, -ir and -re verbs with them.

            For a language that can give the world constructs such as abso-fscking-lutely, splitting an infinitive is child's play.

            1. Madre O'Fender

              Re: Simple Perfectly Rare and Raw Uncommon Sense

              Normans had reverbs? That was not known by me.

  4. E_Nigma

    Clarity

    The suggestion could have been made clearer by providing an example.

    1. very cowardly anonymous

      Re: Clarity

      He did provide examples. Read the source thread before complaining.

      1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: Clarity

        Whooooooooooooooooosh.

  5. R Soul Silver badge

    A sense of priorities

    It's strange to whine about the passive voice in Linux documentation and comments while the systemd cancer goes untreated.

    1. 42656e4d203239 Silver badge
      Coat

      Re: A sense of priorities

      >>systemd cancer goes untreated

      AFAIK systemd != kernel and therefore not Linus' parish... so why would Linus comment on systemd when talking about kernel pull requests?

      1. Skiver

        Re: A sense of priorities

        I think we all know that he isn't shy about commenting on anything linux related.

        1. Jonathan Richards 1 Silver badge

          Re: A sense of priorities

          Yabbut, for Linus, Linux === kernel. Userland is foreign. This is why the pedants among us will refer to, e.g. GNU/Linux.

          1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: A sense of priorities

            Why not ODF/Mozilla/GNU/Linux?

          2. Michael Strorm Silver badge

            Re: A sense of priorities

            > This is why the pedants among us will refer to, e.g. GNU/Linux.

            Surely a true pedant would know- and feel obliged to point out (*)- the fact that, while most distributions *do* rely heavily on GNU tools, they certainly aren't the sole contributor to the userland of Linux distributions. (**) So if someone wants to push the issue, why should it be *just* "GNU/Linux"?

            (*) Pedants like myself, who just did so there!

            (**) I'd be interested to know if there are any distros that *do* genuinely use nothing but the Linux kernel and GNU-derived/affiliated tools.

            1. Jonathan Richards 1 Silver badge
              Happy

              Re: A sense of priorities

              Absolutely. I did put "e.g.", rather than i.e. I have myself been known to refer to KDE/GNU/Linux when I wanted to make clear what was running the GUI.

          3. Herby
            Joke

            Re: A sense of priorities

            Re: GNU/Linux: Shouldn't that be systemd/Linux?

            Me: I really couldn't care less, it all seems to work (for some value of "work").

        2. O'Reg Inalsin

          Re: A sense of priorities

          When it comes to systemd, they expect me to have a lot of colorful opinions, but no. I don't personally care about systemd, in fact my main computer and laptop use it. Now, I don't get along with some of the developers (referring to the Kay Sievers incident) and I think they are a little carefree when it comes to bugs and compatibility, but I'm not much in the camp of people who hate the idea of ​​systemd either. . ["Linus Torvalds: systemd isn't that bad", desdelinux dot net, 2014]

      2. v13

        Re: A sense of priorities

        Also, Linus isn't entirely unhappy that an init system uses many of the Linux features they've been adding all these years. Systemd uses all sorts of cool Linux stuff while sysvinit just runs scripts.

  6. remainer_01
    Coat

    As I get older…

    … my particle is hanging ever deeper. Am I no longer allowed to contribute to the Kernel?

    1. Khaptain Silver badge

      Re: As I get older…

      Shirley, you mean your particles..

      1. remainer_01

        Re: As I get older…

        There was this wild night in Mombassa….

        1. LogicGate Silver badge

          Re: As I get older…

          Did it invlove a chair with a hole in the middle, two bricks and a "urologist" with bad eyesight?

          1. Graham Dawson Silver badge

            Re: As I get older…

            Never got that far. Woody Allen burst out of a TV screen and shot him.

          2. remainer_01

            Re: As I get older…

            I see we have the same health insurance!!

  7. Cem Ayin
    Facepalm

    Linus non est super grammaticos

    But it is certainly good to know that the really important matters are being taken care of in Linux land. Such as ensuring that Gen-Z developers are/will be able to actually understand commit logs... Simple English rulz, comrade!

    1. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: Linus non est super grammaticos

      I'm not sure that the passive versus active voice is going to change how easy change notices are to read. This is a style difference that I don't much object to, but neither do I see it having much benefit to anyone. There are lots of similar style recommendations which I mostly go along with as long as they don't do too much harm.

      In the spirit of tiny grammatical details being considered more important than they are, a company for which I worked had a style checker which was particular about the mood of the verb at the beginning of a comment documenting the purpose of a function. I tended to write my descriptions in the indicative mood ("Deletes all the data"). The checker would reject this and require me to phrase it in the imperative mood ("delete all the data"). I don't know why that s was considered so harmful, but it was clear that someone thought so. Some colleagues found the message, which simply demanded the imperative mood, to be confusing. While I did learn the various moods, I'm not sure they're considered necessary education everywhere and so the style check was not only making an issue of something that nobody really should care about but wasting programmers' time in the process.

      1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

        Re: Linus non est super grammaticos

        Was the problem you'd dropped the subject? Imperatives don't need a subject but grammarians get a bit pissy when you imply it in other moods; i.e. if a grammar checker didn't require the imperative, it would have insisted you write the much more verbose "This function deletes all the data." So a pedantic model has only one valid sentence: "Delete all the data".

        (Personally, I find your approach more agreeable; you are not giving an instruction to someone but indicating what the function does. The missing subject is obvious, and such a usage is widely attested in source code documentation.)

  8. Ken Hagan Gold badge

    A place of regrets

    "slipping into the pluperfect subjunctive mood, a place of regrets where few happy things dwell."

    So true! I don't think I've ever heard someone use this when they were happy about the state of affairs.

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: A place of regrets

      And I suspect, when you finally depart this Earth, you never will have done, either.

  9. STOP_FORTH Silver badge
    Headmaster

    Passive preferred in some languages

    Passive voice is considered polite in German.

    The earlier DVB specifications were all written in English by German speakers.

    I have had a Spanish guy argue with me about a passage in one of our manuals that was copied directly from a DVB spec.

    Aaaargh!

    1. david 12 Silver badge

      Re: Passive preferred in some languages

      Passive voice is considered polite in German.

      Direct translation from German creates turbid/turgid prose in English.

      This is a popular example, but even the literary greats are just as bad in translation:

      “Instruction in world history in the so-called high schools is even today in a very sorry condition. Few teachers understand that the study of history can never be to learn historical dates and events by heart and recite them by rote; that what matters is not whether the child knows exactly when this battle or that was fought, when a general was born, or even when a monarch (usually a very insignificant one) came into the crown of his forefathers. No, by the living God, this is very unimportant. To 'learn' history means to seek and find the forces which are the causes leading to those effects which we subsequently perceive as historical events.”

    2. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: Passive preferred in some languages

      Don't you mean... "English-speaking Germans wrote all the early DVB specifications"?

      1. STOP_FORTH Silver badge

        Re: Passive preferred in some languages

        Perhaps. Some of them may have been Swiss or Austrian, though.

        The specs were mostly in pseudo-code, the text was usually just to aid understanding of the code.

        I'm struggling to recall any examples almost 30 years on but one phrase I really disliked was "this allows the possibility of".

  10. heyrick Silver badge

    One is not amused

    Etc etc.

  11. Pierre 1970
    Coat

    When I write english text in MS Word, the corrector always warn of the passive voice.... how could I imagina that was Linus behind that!

    As my mother language is Spanish, I can only say: My overcraft is full of eels

    1. LionelB Silver badge

      Se siente tu dolor.

  12. Mishak Silver badge

    I'm British...

    And was educated during the period in which it was considered unnecessary to teach English grammar, as "kids just pick it up".

    I therefore have no idea what this is about.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I'm British...

      At school we asked our teachers for a lesson in grammar. We were told they weren't allowed to teach it. An entire generation left to learn grammar from MS-Word auto correct. What could possibly go wrong?

      1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

        Re: I'm British...

        So you would not know how to react should you be confronted by a subjunctive?

        1. I am the liquor
          Holmes

          Re: I'm British...

          I would strike the scoundrel sharply on the pate with my cane.

    2. Bill Gray

      Re: I'm British...

      I'm American. Here, grammar became considered unnecessary somewhere around the mid-1960s, during which time I was busy being born. The only time I was taught anything about English grammar was when learning other languages, and seeing their overlap with English. (Which was interesting, but I must admit that I mostly just "picked it up".)

    3. Bebu
      Windows

      Re: I'm British...

      And was educated during the period in which it was considered unnecessary to teach English grammar, as "kids just pick it up"

      Colonial but the same applied. I learnt (English) grammar only when I studied French in high school. :)

      Unfortunately kids don't just pick it up which renders much of their later written communication illiterate - ranging from unintended ambiguity to utter impenetrablity.

      I had to wait until middle age to learn a practical definition of a sentence and then from a non native English speaker - basically that a sentence expresses a single coherent thought or idea. Forget about finite verbs etc ;) By this definition the absence of coherent thought rather precludes the construction of comprehensible sentences.

      The passive is maliciously used to conceal the omission of the implicit by whom, by duck shovers and responsibility avoiders or shifters.

      1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: I'm British...

        I have just been threatened with a permanent ban from Wikipedia for "vandalism". My sin was to correct a small grammatical error by moving a closing parenthesis five words to the right1.

        But then, Wikipedians are one of the weirdest cults on the internet and I shouldn't really be surprised.

        1 To paraphrase, I changed "Sydney (who had one arm), but could ride a bicycle ..." to "Sydney (who had one arm, but could ride a bicycle) ...". The horror, the horror.

        1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

          Re: I'm British...

          The first version reduces to Sydney , but could ride a bicycle... which makes absolutely no sense. Shirely this is just... well... obvious.

          1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

            Re: I'm British...

            That's what I'd have thought, but some administrator there seems to be really pissed off with me over it.

            Shirley.

      2. Yankee Doodle Doofus Bronze badge

        Re: I'm British...

        < "The passive is maliciously used to conceal the omission of the implicit by whom, by duck shovers and responsibility avoiders or shifters."

        Indeed. Here in the U.S. the passive voice is commonly used by journalists when reporting on people who were shot by police officers. They mention that someone took a bullet during an "officer-involved shooting" or some other weaselly wording. When you see this you can be 99% sure that the shooter was a cop. They don't use passive voice when a civilian criminal is doing the shooting. I remember one from not too long ago that mentioned that a cop and his wife had been shot. The cop was dead, and the wife was in critical condition. From the headline and first paragraph or two, a person would likely assume that they had been shot by a deranged criminal during a home invasion. The truth? It was an attempted murder/suicide by the husband (cop).

    4. BenDwire Silver badge
      FAIL

      Re: I'm British...

      I even went to a grammar school, but wasn't taught English language at all. We did do compulsary Latin, but I completely zoned out as any normal 11 year old would. At O-Level, 30 out of 90 pupils had to retake the exam ...

    5. Jonathan Richards 1 Silver badge

      Re: I'm British...

      For all the people wanting to catch up somewhat painlessly, even entertainingly, with English grammar, I recommend buying a copy of 'A Dictionary of Modern English Usage' by H.W. Fowler. First published in 1926, though mine is a 2nd edition, published 1968. So, correctly named for certain values of 'modern', then, but it has been issued in several new editions since.

      Having the book, you can always look up a particular topic, or you can open it at random, and enjoy whatever your eye lights upon.

      Here is the 5th entry under passive disturbances, reproduced for your pleasure:

      5. The impersonal passive --- it is felt, it is thought, it is believed, etc. --- is a construction dear to those who write official and business letters. It is reasonable enough in statements made at large --- It is believed that a large green car was in the vicinity at the time of the accident. / It is understood that the wanted man is wearing a raincoat and a cloth cap. But when one person is addressing another it often amounts to a pusillanimous shrinking from responsibility. (It is felt that your complaint arises from a misunderstanding. / It is thought that ample provision has been made against this contingency).

      The person addressed has a right to know who it is that entertains a feeling he may not share or a thought he may consider mistaken, and is justly resentful of the suggestion that it exists in the void. On the other hand, the impersonal passive should have been used in For these reasons the effects of the American recession upon Britain will be both smaller and shorter than were originally feared. Were should be was (i.e. than it was originally feared they would be).

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Even if British, up close and personal are things more passionate than passive impersonal ‽ .

        The person addressed has a right to know who it is that entertains a feeling he may not share or a thought he may consider mistaken, and is justly resentful of the suggestion that it exists in the void. On the other hand, the impersonal passive should have been used in For these reasons the effects of the American recession upon Britain will be both smaller and shorter than were originally feared. Were should be was (i.e. than it was originally feared they would be). ..... H.W. Fowler, via Jonathan Richards 1

        That may very well indeed have been true of then, but since the times now, and the places and spaces in which one can work with REST and play, they are so fundamentally a'changed, how best should it be written today to truthfully convey the future news that it is certainly unreasonable and quite possibly even treasonous to try proposing and effectively presenting as fact, the salacious fallacious notion that any American recession upon Britain will be both smaller and shorter than is expected and feared whenever it is sure to be greater and longer than was never even imagined before. ...... for is that not where y'all is at, in an active persistent vegetative state of delusional self-denial ?

        1. Jonathan Richards 1 Silver badge

          Re: Even if British, up close and personal are things more passionate than passive impersonal ‽ .

          Whooosh. Dr Fowler was quoting something written in or before 1926; even if he had made up the illustrative sentence, it would only be relevant for its grammatical structure, not for 21st century geopolitics.

    6. doublelayer Silver badge

      Re: I'm British...

      Opinions on grammar are highly variable and subjective. I see little difference between "the thing was fixed" or "this fixes the thing" when the words are clearly linked to a commit. If they were separated from the code they changed, then theoretically it would be harder to understand, but they aren't and, if they were, the suggested changes wouldn't work either because "this" wouldn't refer to anything specific and could be a certain commit, a batch of commits as an update, or who knows what else. Unless they were requiring that the messages take the form of "commit 28ac9307 fixes the thing", the form of the sentence makes little difference to me.

      1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

        Re: I'm British...

        See comment by Jonathan Richards 1.

        Passive voice leaves open the possibility, however implicit, that the act being described was not carried out by the commit being described. That is, unless one also explicitly states that, a usually painfully cumbersome sentence construction.

        This act was done. By whom?

        1. doublelayer Silver badge

          Re: I'm British...

          So do many options involving the active voice, though I grant not the example I used.

          I fixed the bug in the thing [in a commit two weeks ago].

          These changes [but not this one] fix the bug in the thing.

          I contend that this is not really a concern that has much relevance. If people are putting in commit messages that do not correspond to what the commit actually does, how they phrase it is not the problem. Anyone doing this is either deliberately dishonest or getting commits confused, and neither is going to be fixed by adding a subject picked from a short list to the sentence. I also wonder where my most typical form would fall. I tend to write commit messages in the active voice but without a subject ("fixes a bug in the thing"). Yes, those are fragments. It hasn't caused a problem so far and sticking "this" on the front won't help.

  13. Filippo Silver badge

    >It creates a lack of clarity that leads not only to confusion about responsibility or agency

    That's often the point, see "mistakes were made". I sometimes do this to avoid pointing in public at the person who did a fuckup.

    1. Ace2 Silver badge

      It has a lot of room for improvement

    2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Good organisations say "We made mistakes". Mediocre organisations say "Mistakes were made". Shitty organisations say "Fred made mistakes".

  14. demon driver

    Torvalds' aim may be true, but his understanding of language is a bit lacking

    The most prominent difference between Torvalds' two example sentences – (1) 'In this pull request, the Xyzzy driver error handling was fixed to avoid a NULL pointer dereference' vs. (2) 'This fixes a NULL pointer dereference in ..' – is not that between passive and active, but that of the subject, actually a question of meaning. In (1), the acting subject implicitly is an unnamed person, a someone who did the fixing, in (2) it is the pull request with its code that does the fixing. Simply transforming (1) into active voice would make it something like 'In this pull request, we fixed the Xyzzy driver error handling to avoid a NULL pointer dereference' – which wouldn't be that much better than the original, either ;-)

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Re: Torvalds' aim may be true, but his understanding of language is a bit lacking

      Also the most significant bit of the description - that it applies to the Xyzzy driver comes first in the version he doesn't like. A reader skimming a lot of pull requests would want that to come before the detail so as to know whether to continue reading or skip to the next article.

      1. Apocalypso - a cheery end to the world

        Re: Torvalds' aim may be true, but his understanding of language is a bit lacking

        > Also the most significant bit of the description - that it applies to the Xyzzy driver comes first in the version he doesn't like. A reader skimming a lot of pull requests would want that to come before the detail so as to know whether to continue reading or skip to the next article.

        A bit like traffic reports on the radio where they say "There's a five mile queue on the <roadname>" but, because you're only half-listening, it's the mention of the road's name that gets your attention but by then it's too late.

  15. Bebu
    Windows

    "The pluperfect subjunctive mood, a place of regrets where few happy things dwell"

    Alone worth the price of admission if there were any such impost. ;)

    Linus is Finnish? No?

    I vaguely recall Finland is/was pretty keen on Latin including web sites entirely in Latin which might explain a few things.

    1. RolandM

      Re: "The pluperfect subjunctive mood, a place of regrets where few happy things dwell"

      Linus is a Finnish speaking Swedish as mother tongue.

  16. Sceptic Tank Silver badge
    Boffin

    Aggressively passive

    Genius idea icon ====>

    How's about someone develop an English-like programming language◈ for writing them commit messages? You'll have a standard library of messages and plug in the parameters. (That way there won't be any arguments). So you'll write your comment in whichever dialect you like, hit compile, and it translates that into good English.

    ◈ In fact, it can output Standard Klingon for all I care.

    1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

      Re: Aggressively passive

      I just had a nightmarish vision of COBOL in the passive voice.

      FOR A 1 IS ADDED TO A

      (Wakes up, sweating, heart pounding)

  17. disgruntled yank

    Passive voice considered harmful?

    As far as I know, American schools do still teach grammar. But America is a very large country, and practices may vary from school to school even within a school district, let alone across state lines.

    1. Orv Silver badge

      Re: Passive voice considered harmful?

      When I learned technical writing in college, I was taught that it was professional to use passive voice and avoid "you," "I," etc.

      1. J.G.Harston Silver badge

        Re: Passive voice considered harmful?

        When I learned technical writing in *IN* *SCHOOL*, I was taught that it was professional to use passive voice and avoid "you," "I," etc. How on earth do people manage to get into colleges and further while being unable to write?

      2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Re: Passive voice considered harmful?

        "Professional" is a dangerous weasel word which is rarely defined and never usefully defined. It almost invariably means "because I say so" with the implication that anyone who does not agree is a lesser human being. See also "safeguarding", "inappropriate", "privacy" and other synonyms for "because".

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    War declared on passive voice by project leadership

    Feelings had been expressed that humour might be found in a headline formulated with this wording.

    *25 years in local government

    1. collinsl Silver badge

      Re: War declared on passive voice by project leadership

      As long as you don't start writing in iambic pentameter then we'll be OK

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: War declared on passive voice by project leadership

        And don't start "verbing with stakeholders"

    2. diodesign (Written by Reg staff) Silver badge

      Re: War declared on passive voice by project leadership

      There were concerns the potential impact of the title may have been lessened for the very reasons elaborated by the open source figurehead, as well as possibly attracting unfair allegations we had failed to understand their arguably well-elucidated point.

      C.

  19. Gene Cash Silver badge

    From 2014

    "How to write a git commit message"

    https://cbea.ms/git-commit/

    1. FrogsAndChips Silver badge

      Re: From 2014

      A lot of these guidelines are worth applying in other contexts than git commit.

  20. David Nash
    Facepalm

    That's terrible, you were clearly right, the "but" doesn't make sense otherwise.

  21. Not Yb Bronze badge

    Also known as the "police report" voice

    Where it wasn't the police that shot the person, but the bullets that hit, etc. etc. No policeperson did anything, and yet these things happened somehow.

    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

      Re: Also known as the "police report" voice

      An "officer involved shooting"

      An officer got shot

      An officer shot the suspect

      An officer shot a bystander

    2. Someone Else Silver badge

      Re: Also known as the "police report" voice

      "Guns don't kill people, people kill people!"

      In that case, we need to regulate people not guns...

      1. demon driver

        Re: Also known as the "police report" voice

        Yeah, but isn't "regulating guns" actually "regulating people"?

    3. Ace2 Silver badge

      Re: Also known as the "police report" voice

      Actual headline:

      “Baltimore police kill man while firing into crowd”

      What? Why were the cops firing into the crowd?

      Within minutes it was fixed, to “kill man who was firing into crowd”

  22. Someone Else Silver badge

    Seems strange

    Is this really a hill that Linus needs/wants to die on?

    Something about bigger fish....

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    He’s going to love gender neutral pronouns…especially when someone uses a plural one to describe themselves. That confuses the shit out of me and I’m not even 50.

    1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

      Single/plural in English isn't really that clear. There are aspects of informal vs formal, personal vs impersonal and definite vs indefinite involved.

      E.g. the "royal we" - for very formal documents. "See who's at the door and find out what they want." was an example of the indefinite given here some time ago.

      The oddest one of all: 2nd person singular is now archaic in English.

      1. Benegesserict Cumbersomberbatch Silver badge

        Then listen to His Orangeness speak for more than a minute, and ask yourself, "How many Donald Trumps are there?"

        Regarding first person singular and the T/V distinction: either we started treating everyone with respect, or nobody with deference. Nice that other languages are saying to do the same.

    2. Ian Johnston Silver badge

      Nobody ever uses a gender neutral pronoun to describe themselves: they use "I", or "me". Preferred pronouns are what you want/demand other people use about you.

      1. Ian Johnston Silver badge

        Actually, thinking about it, "I" and "me" are gender neutral, aren't they? But my point remains: preferred pronouns are what other people are asked to use.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          You literally made the point that gender neutral pronouns are something that we use all the time, and then you keep complaining about them.

          Singular "they/them" has been a thing for centuries, and only sensitive right-wing snowflakes complain about it.

  24. nautica Silver badge
    Boffin

    "...'cause I'm yo momma and I said so..."

    "Besides a mathematical inclination, an exceptionally good mastery of one's native tongue is the most vital asset of a competent programmer."--Edsger Dijkstra

  25. MalIlluminated

    Unpopular opinion, in an ideal world, commit messages would be in the past tense. They aren't intended for present-day you, who will hopefully remember what he did for at least a day or two. They are meant for future you, who will be looking back, probably wondering "how the hell did I end up here." It's the History, not the Ever-Precessing Stream of Consciousness.

  26. Uncle Meatie

    Science writing does *not* use the passive voice

    The article says "The passive construction, which is overwhelmingly used in scientific papers and by many a technical writer,"

    Passive voice has been discouraged for at least 30 years by scientific journals, at least in the biological sciences. There are a few old-timers I've worked with who still write in the passive voice but manuscripts get corrected by younger authors or the journal's editors prior to publication.

  27. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. timrowledge

      Re: __obvious_solution__()

      No. Just, *no*. Please go and find your medication and ensure you have completed the correct dosage for the day. Any time the answer is Python, it can reliably be assumed that the question was just plain daft.

  28. JRStern

    Brevity is the soul of wit

    >'This fixes a NULL pointer dereference in ..'

    Or go telegraphic and just write:

    "fixes null pointer dereference in ..."

    Could be "fixes" or "fixed". Even using caps seems prolix unless talking about something actually case-sensitive.

    Concise, telegraphic writing usually starts as active voice or is more like active voice.

  29. EvaQ
    WTF?

    Linus himself: "nothing was learnt"

    Linus on bcachefs PR: "That was just last week, and I'm getting the strong feeling that absolutely nothing was learnt from the experience."

    ... "nothing was learnt"?! As passive as possible.

    Linus should eat his own dogfood!

  30. CowHorseFrog Silver badge

    Going to guess a lot of people here are software engineers and work with source control. Without making a personal comment, how many people find that other co-workers do a really bad job at writing anything at all in the first place ?

  31. phy445

    Its complicated

    My interpretation of LT's rant is that comments should be as short and clear as possible. Getting tied up in worrying about passive vs negative is a distraction.

    A pretty deep level on the passive clause is given here: https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2922. The author of that literally wrote the book on English grammar. I suspect most readers will be surprised by just how much there is to it.

  32. Dyspeptic Curmudgeon

    Gotcha! Mr. Ed. After all these years where you have tried to convince us that you came from a dirty-fingernail, un-washed hair family, closely related to the original Four Yorkshiremen living in a cardboard box, you have let slip the truth of your history: You went to school, a good school, where the teachers knocked Latin into your head by way of a cane applied to your rear. Because no-one, I mean absolutely no-one ever learned about the pluperfect subjunctive through English grammar class, but from being made to do conjugations and declensions in Latin class.

    "slipping into the pluperfect subjunctive mood, a place of regret where your educational history is revealed."

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