3.3 Active verse Passive and Finite verse Infinite: From what perspective to decide on?

I turned on my big screen television. The dawn set at almost six-thirty, and my exhaustion laying me low on the sofa and yet to falling asleep. Deep inside my consciousness, I listened to every word the news anchor reiterated from their written script at the low speed projected by the teleprompter.  Then in a sudden, the bell trolled inside my head. It began with a passive sentence for the news opening. “The Bill that was passed on Tuesday will allow XXX to do cross border checking in YYY.” I had no idea why the scripts misused passive voice and had a strange planning upon finite and infinite structure. It left me stunned because journalism should have its writing and reporting style on policy address, social issues, and in the financial market. And moving onto passive was not the best option. It reminded me of a particular English culture that elevated redundancy over appropriateness and genuineness.

Active or Passive, and how should we adapt from it accordingly? An active voice is a sentence description that a subject is the active conductor of an action; we mainly use it when we want to direct our audiences from who/whom/what action carried forward. Assume if I were the reporter sitting inside the chamber of congress and writing my script. “The legislators passed the cross-border bill on Tuesday; it will now allow XXX to do cross border checking in YYY.” In this case, the legislators were the subject and doer to pass the bill, and the message was clear - you should obey the law from now on. How about passive voice? Passive voice composed of +be and a part participle of the main verb; however, the subject did not mechanically refer to the doers or somethings that caused the action. From the above example, “The Bill that was passed on Tuesday will allow XXX to do cross border checking in YYY”. The Bill was the subject, but it did not make sense because it was not the doer of the action. Who would the person be? The sentence itself did not provide an answer to your ambiguous question.

There are rules and styles on using active voice and passive voice. An Active voice, by definition, asserted a more dynamic than in passive. It concerns with clear but precise, and short but powerful statements. Your audience should know beforehand about the circumstances, for example, when and what kinds of law passed that impacted their life. It also gives audiences a soft sensational touch that is embedded in your words like in a speech or in writing. In contract to the active voice, a passive voice draws direct emphasis to the important message that we address the audience with less attention from who or whom the action was carried. Still, you can refer to the agent, instrument, or the medium with the word -by for the action displaced at the end of the sentence. Using passive voice is convenient if your overall audiences have a general consent on the issue and understanding. But again, it varies upon situations and your comfortability.

In the same program, I realized another topic of the writing structure: Finite verse Infinite verbs. In news writing and formal prose, finite verbs often create stronger and clearer statements because they represent actions as definite events, while infinitives are more useful for expressing purpose, intention, or a result. Consequently, making a choice between finite and infinitive structures should differ from the writer’s purpose: report of an action directly or explain why that action matters.

Both finite and infinite verbs shape the sentence’s presentation upon completion, direction, and the flow of sounds (consonants). As the verb refers to a subject and a tense, it is defined as Finite verbs; e.g.  I walked to school. It looks like a simple sentence. The Infinite verbs are verbs that do not reveal the subject; it appears to be more sophisticated as it includes the base form, the present or past participle form, the -to infinitive form. Let us look at some examples. You should think before you make your statement. Think was the base form of the infinitive verb. In the advanced level, the infinitive verb -to may open the door to more analytical illustration upon the state of being and events. Let us look at the following example: I am happy to see you here, and it was stupid enough to attend a party without an invitation. There were two parts of infinitive verbs. The first one referred to the welcoming of a guest, and the second one argued upon the conflict of interest of the action. Then who was the doer of the action? The guest himself/herself was in fact had the intention embraced.

The discussion of finite and infinite verbs clarifies the method you should use for the purpose of your statement. In the scenario-based situation, there are guidance for regulating toward the best outcome, provided that the statement is clear, precise, powerful, and to be understandable. The lacked interpretation draws a loophole circling around the main thesis; it is common in other spoken languages. Westerners referred it as writing within-a-circle itself; it was a main technique dragged onto Asian Literature and some Native American literature writing. But by distinguishing the finite and infinite verbs, you would know when you should apply to your moment of thought as well as to your subsequent moment of reflection. So, you could faithfully confront to your readers. The same on using active and passive voice because you need to know about your audience, what’s your message conveys are and the impact of your statement.

After watching the news, the lesson learnt was in fact impactful. You could exploit from the abstract statements written from their reporting style. You could learn new vocabulary from the scripts and captions. You could also train your listening skills. Nevertheless, with all kinds of learning, you should not take the exemplar as granted. Think about all the combined elements and reflect upon whether it was appropriate and best-to-fit in your daily life.

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