Learn English – Passive voice with two verbs

passive-voice

I want to ask a question about the passive.

Let's see this sentence:

"I want to eat the food"

What is its correct passive sentence?

Is it?

" The food wants to be eaten "

or

" The food is wanted to be eaten "

Best Answer

The clause "I want to eat the food" does not have any universally-accepted passive counterpart.

Your first suggestion, "The food wants to be eaten", is perfectly grammatical, but its meaning is different: it says that the food wants you to eat it, not that you want to eat it. So it sounds rather surreal.

Your second suggestion, "The food is wanted to be eaten", is marginal at best: some native speakers do produce such sentences (at least on occasion), but it's probably not part of Standard English. If you're interested, Dr. Neal Whitman of the Ohio State University has documented various instances that he's found "in the wild": <https://literalminded.wordpress.com/category/syntax/passive-voice/double-passives/>.

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