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I know the following kind of transformation can be done to turn passive voice into active voice when there is an actor preceded by the preposition by:

  1. An application developed by Microsoft should be easy to use.
  2. A Microsoft-developed application should be easy to use.

Can the rule above be also applied when there is a with preposition preceding a means or tool?

For example:

  1. An application developed with a service-oriented architecture can be easily integrated with other applications.
  2. A service-oriented architecture–developed application can be easily integrated with other applications.
tchrist
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goahead97
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    "Not wrong" does not mean readable. "An application developed with a service-oriented architecture" is readable, whereas the dense version needs to be read 3 times. So it's no favor to the reader. – Yosef Baskin Feb 24 '24 at 23:49
  • developed by Microsoft is a passive relative clause. You can make it active like this: An application that Microsoft develops* should be easy to use.* – Tinfoil Hat Feb 24 '24 at 23:55
  • Please do not repost questions that were closed by the community. Next time, please edit the closed one that you already asked to improve it. When you do that, it will be automatically nominating for being reöpened. – tchrist Feb 24 '24 at 23:57
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    Stacked premodifiers are at best ugly, at worst confusing. [2] works; [4] is ghastly. Orwell says that ungrammatical can be less bad than ghastly. // Does 'with' here mean 'using' or 'having'? – Edwin Ashworth Feb 25 '24 at 00:04
  • Here’s a Wikipedia article on a service-oriented architecture (SOA), not to confused with software as a service (SAAS), two technical terms of art in the field of commercial software and computer programming with which the general readership may be otherwise unfamiliar. – tchrist Feb 25 '24 at 00:14
  • I use my own Qt Creator-developed app. Hmm. – FumbleFingers Feb 25 '24 at 00:30
  • You’re complicating things... Q: Do these mean the same thing?: An application developed with* Microsoft should be easy to use.* | A Microsoft-developed application should be easy to use. (A: No.) – Tinfoil Hat Feb 25 '24 at 02:51
  • Does 'with' here mean 'using' or 'having'? ->Yes, it does. – goahead97 Feb 25 '24 at 14:52

3 Answers3

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In a comment, Yosef Baskin sagely wrote:

"Not wrong" does not mean readable. "An application developed with a service-oriented architecture" is readable, whereas the dense version needs to be read 3 times. So it's no favor to the reader.

tchrist
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In a comment, Edwin Ashworth briefly wrote:

Stacked premodifiers are at best ugly, at worst confusing. [2] works; [4] is ghastly. Orwell says that ungrammatical can be less bad than ghastly.

tchrist
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Both are equally acceptable. IMHO A puts slightly more emphasis in the product, Word, whilst B slightly emphasises Microsoft. This is probably because of which one comes first in the sentence.
So it all comes down to context. Whether you are discussing the product or the company. If there is nothing to chose then I believe the active voice, A, is preferable.

Peter Jennings
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