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I find the standard examples of active and passive voice on, say, Purdue Owl to be pretty obvious. For example, "He kicked the ball" versus "The ball was kicked by him."

For the examples, Someone was talking about whether these different sentences were passive or active voice during a story critique. But when you have "Her hair was dark" vs "She had dark hair." It doesn't seem that either of these would be passive voice. "Her hair was dark" is passive voice? because in passive voice the subject should be receiving the action of the sentence, but that doesn't look to be the case here—her hair is simply dark and only an auxiliary verb is present.

Also, someone was saying "she looked young" is passive, but "she was young" is not passive. But this makes no sense to me. Are they perhaps meaning one is less precise, and they weren't talking about passive/active voice at all when they were saying it was passive? Because all I'm seeing that's different about these two phrases is a narrator that is either uncertain or certain about the subject's age.

CherryHamster
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    Sentences without an action verb can't be passive: "She had dark hair". That's a subject/be/noun phrase. The verb to be and the verbs to do with appearance/seeming: to look, sound, appear, seem, etc. are not action verbs. Ergo, the category passive does not apply to them. Those verbs do not an express an action. – Lambie Dec 09 '17 at 19:43
  • @Lambie Did you really just call have a “be” verb? Whatever happened to a good time was had by all? – tchrist Dec 09 '17 at 20:23
  • @tchrist No, I did not. I said sentences without an action verb can't be passive. You wouldn't, under normal circumstances, write or say: "Dark hair was had by her", now would you?? Then, I went on to mention the "be" verbs. – Lambie Dec 09 '17 at 20:34
  • @Lambie You said, and I quote: ”She had dark hair". That's a subject/be/noun phrase — Very well then, If that's truly a subject/be/noun phrase as you've said it is, then prithee which do you imagine to be the be part of said phrase? You have four choices, and one guess: choose wisely. – tchrist Dec 09 '17 at 20:37
  • "Her hair was dark" is not a passive expression but rather a so-called weak-verb expression. "Her hair was darkened," on the other hand, is a passive expression—and it demonstrates the primary shortcoming of that type of expression at its least satisfactory: the sentence gives no hint as to the cause of the darkening even as it emphasizes the active change from lighter to darker hair. "Her hair was darkened by exposure to Clairol" and "Her hair was darkened by the familiar effect of nightfall" and "Her hair was darkened by Mr. Robert" are all passive expressions, but they aren't ambiguous. – Sven Yargs Dec 09 '17 at 20:57
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    "Weak-verb expression," I should perhaps acknowledge, is not a grammatical notion. It reflects a simplistic categorization of verbs, according to which converting simple, solid verbs such as be and have to fancier ones such as constitute and possess transforms plodding, soporific text or speech into something stirring, majestic, or enthralling. As an oversimplification of what makes good writing good, this treatment borders on delusional—but it persists in many a classroom in which the educator attributes demigodlike powers to active or lively or strong verbs. – Sven Yargs Dec 09 '17 at 21:21
  • For your examples, a simple test would be whether the subject of the sentence was the 'recipient' of the action or its 'actor'. In your examples, "her hair was dark", "she had dark hair", "she looked young", "she was young", the subject was the 'actor', so those examples are not in passive form. – Lawrence Dec 09 '17 at 23:38
  • Sentences without action verbs can perfectly well be passive. There are many examples. "Have" constructions like your example "She has dark hair" are functionally somewhat similar to passives, but grammatically they are quite different. – Greg Lee Dec 10 '17 at 01:22
  • @GregLee I'm having a hard time seeing how her hair can be the actor. :) – tchrist Dec 10 '17 at 02:11
  • @tchrist, Obviously, her hair is not an actor. I don't understand how you could have construed my comment to imply that it was. She is an example of an original non-subject (a possessor), which has been brought into subject position. – Greg Lee Dec 10 '17 at 16:44
  • @GregLee You were just being teased by me — unlike her hair. :) – tchrist Dec 10 '17 at 16:46

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You’re exactly right that the sentence she looked young is no more passive than she was young. Sounds like somebody doesn’t know what a passive even is. This drives linguists mad, because the vulgar usage of their term rubs them the wrong way.

See this brief synopsis on what the passive is — and what it is not. If you want more meat than afforded by that short explanation, then do read Fear and Loathing of the English Passive.

Andriy M
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tchrist
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