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I have to do a text study, a text interpretation, and I chose the song "Fortunate Son" by the American rock band Creedence. At starting it, the sentence: "Some folks are born made to wave the flag." caught my attention. Please, Is it a passive voice sentence?

I'm thinking to say in my appresentation, that the starting letter wanna to mean about someone to do something away from their plans. And the use of passive voice can strengthen this idea.

But, "Some folks are born made to wave the flag." is realy in passive voice? How could turn it in active voice?

Perhaps, I'm deeping in feelings more than practice of text interpretation. Thank you.

MariaD
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2 Answers2

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To be born is historically and syntactically passive; but in the modern language, it does not behave as passive (you can't add a by phrase, for example).

I find the sentence as a whole, with the participial clause made to wave the flag very awkward: I don't think anybody would say that. But of course lyrics do not always follow the grammatical and idiomatic norms.

Colin Fine
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    Agreed, but note that 'to bear' (as in give birth) is very cognate: "Mary bore a son' sort of transforms to -> 'A son was born -to- Mary' not the passive transformation to 'by'. – Mitch Dec 19 '23 at 14:48
  • I always interpreted it as there being a comma between "born" and "made", like he was emphasizing the intrinsic nature of the subjects' patriotism by using two verbs as a rhetorical device. But that's likely just projection on my part. – Doug Warren Dec 19 '23 at 14:59
  • MItch: Yes, but bear in this sense is now a very literary verb. – Colin Fine Dec 19 '23 at 15:06
  • @ColinFine, not entirely. We do speak of a woman’s childbearing years, for instance. – PaulTanenbaum Dec 19 '23 at 17:10
  • Paul Tannenbaum. yes, and we talk about a baby being born, which is where this began. Neither of these facts tells us anything at all about the currency of the verb bear in this sense, any more than the currency of gobsmacked tells us that there is a current verb gobsmack. – Colin Fine Dec 19 '23 at 17:28
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Consider someone who is extremely tall. A basketball coach might say to him:

You were made to play basketball.

That is, the guy's innate physical qualities are suited to playing basketball, a game in which height can be a great advantage.

made can be used to refer to a person's innate disposition as well.

He was made to be a politician.

Perhaps his nature is to be very charming and people tend to like him.

Whether we treat made as the past participle of the verb "make" in the transitive sense of "built, constructed" or as an adjective formed from that past participle, on the semantic level the person, the subject of the verb, had no say, that is, no agency in the matter. The athlete's tallness or the politician's charm are being treated as qualities that another (implicit) agent was responsible for.

Now, there is also an expression in English "born to {bare infinitive}" which has a very similar sense.

She feels she was born to sing.

She feels she was born to be a doctor.

That is, she feels that singing or being a doctor is her true "calling". She feels called to do it. It is not a willed decision but something that is driving her.

In the lyric you are looking at, these two constructions are combined, and in a sense that combining doubles their force, and that doubling is appropriate because people who are so-called "flag wavers" tend to show their patriotism with great zeal.

TimR
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  • The verb is just "born" (not "born to"), and the clause is passive, which is what the OP wanted to know. – BillJ Dec 20 '23 at 07:44
  • @BillJ There are two verbs involved, "born", as the predicate in the sentence, and the other, "made", in its complement. – TimR Dec 20 '23 at 10:24
  • Yes, of course. I was talking about the matrix verb, which is just "born" (not "born to"). I think you should have said in your answer that there is matrix passivisation. I take "made" to be an adjective here, with the infinitival clause "to wave the flag" as its complement. – BillJ Dec 20 '23 at 12:16
  • @BillJ made doesn't pass the "very" test you often cite. – TimR Dec 20 '23 at 12:38
  • It's non-gradable here. But the main point here is that the OP asked if the sentence is passive, which it is. – BillJ Dec 20 '23 at 12:53