I Try To Write in the Active Voice, and I Say: DuPont’s $500 Million Biofuel Bet Is Bound To Fail

Verbs in Western languages have something called “voice”: active and passive.

“Bob hit the ball,” is in the active voice.  Here we have a subject, the active verb “hit,” and an object.  I could have written, “The ball was hit by Bob,” using “was hit” in the passive voice, though this would be a bit awkward, and for no real purpose.

Sometimes there is a reason, however, not to name the person/place/thing that performed the action.  I made a significant mistake in a family matter about 10 years ago.  In a later discussion of the matter with my mother, who embodies a unique and wonderful combination of love, diplomacy, and candor, she told me, “Craig, mistakes were made.”

OK, enough said about grammar and my family.

Here’s an article whose title is: DuPont’s $500 Million Biofuel Bet (is) Expected to Pay Off.  Note the passive construction. If you read the article you’ll find out what you should have expected from the title: It’s unclear who, if anyone, expects this bet to pay off.

I certainly don’t.

After all the positive PR is behind us, DuPont will eventually conclude what Chevron did a few days ago: biofuels don’t scale.  The chairman and CEO of the second-largest U.S. oil company threw in the towel, as I reported last week.