Passive Voice – Comprehensive Guide on Active vs Passive Voice Usage

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I am a learner of English and have been learning it naturally for a few months. I get confused, when I read something which does not make sense to me. Please check below sentences to understand what I mean.

On newspapers:

John slapped again while campaigning in New York.

But John did not slap anyone but he was slapped by someone. So, I think this sentence should be written something like that:

John was slapped again while campaigning in New York by a man.

Or

John got slapped again while campaigning in New York by a man.

Or

A man slapped John again while he (John) was campaigning in Mumbai.

Thanks in advance.

Best Answer

In newspaper headlines, editors tend to leave out as many words as possible for space-economical reasons. It also helps readers to read the headlines very quickly to rouse their interest in reading the rest of the article.

So "A man was robbed while he was sitting at home" becomes:

Man Robbed At Home

Some standard parts of sentences that are left out of headlines are:

  • articles (a man -> man)
  • auxiliary verbs (a man was slapped -> man slapped)
  • copulative "be": (the new major is very happy -> New Major Very Happy)

There are many more, and it can be an interesting exercise to try and reconstruct a complete, correct sentence out of condensed headlines :)

Although a bit of ambiguity is not bad for a headline (it helps attract attention), in this case I do not see ambiguity.

If slapped was meant as an active verb, I would have expected the object to be mentioned - otherwise it makes no sense.

"A man slapped his neighbour" would become "Man Slapped Neighbour", not "Man Slapped Visiting Neighbours House".

For a headline like "Company Sued for Millions", I also see little confusion: if it is the company doing the suing, it is only news while the case is ongoing, so it would be "Company Sues For Millions"

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