Lionel McIntyre assaults woman, English language
As you might have seen elsewhere and as the New York Post reported, a “prominent Columbia architecture professor punched a female university employee in the face at a Harlem bar during a heated argument about race relations.”
The professor, Lionel McIntyre, is black and the woman he punched is white. Read the Post article for details. Or google Lionel McIntyre. As you can imagine, some bloggers are probably having fun with how much race relations have improved in the age of Obama. Others are surely asking whether the public outcry (is there one?) would be greater if the race roles were reversed — if a white man — a prominent man in a position of respect — had punched a black woman. Some have asked if this should be considered a hate crime. All fodder for bloggy sniping back and forth that we love so much. So have at it if you’d like.
But since the puncher is a professor of architecture and not of English, let those of us who profess to teach writing pay attention to the way words are used. Here is the last paragraph of the Post story, which quotes McIntyre:
“It was a very unfortunate event,” he said afterwards. “I didn’t mean for it to explode the way it did.”
As I’ve told my students, despite Microsoft Word’s helpful green squiggles imploring the use of active voice, sometimes writers deliberately use passive voice, or otherwise take the focus off of the actor, to deflect responsibility. Yes, McIntyre says, “I didn’t mean,” an indication of his involvement, but every other part of his statement distances himself as the actor, as a person who did anything that caused the “unfortunate event.”
It was not an “unfortunate event.” An unfortunate event is when the hot water heater leaks in your basement and ruins your collection of comic books that you’ve been saving for 25 years and stupidly left in cardboard boxes on the floor. But there, the event is not merely a matter of fortune, or luck — you could have stored your comic books up higher so they would be safe from a leak. You had some control over the event and were not merely unfortunate.
A bolt of lightning hitting you while you are sitting in your living room is an unfortunate event. It’s hard to see you as responsible for that. But if you were standing on your roof holding a metal pole towards the sky in the middle of a thunderstorm, we wouldn’t consider you unfortunate if lightning toasted your ass.
“The event” is “it” in the second half of the quote. The event did not explode the way “it” did. The event punched no one. Events never punch. People do. And McIntyre did.
Update: To clarify, and before another grammar cop accuses me of grammar ignorance (as if this post is really about grammar), and because some of you might not read the so-fun grammar argument that ensued in the comments, I did not mean that McIntyre’s statement was in the passive voice. The only reason I mentioned passive voice is a student (I don’t teach grammar, but courses in freshman composition and creative writing) recently asked whether it is okay to use it sometimes. That conversation, about using language to deliberately distance the actor from responsibility for an act, seemed relevant to McIntyre’s statement, which is not itself in passive voice but uses language for a similar purpose.
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Nice dissection.
That reminds me, I do have to check on those comic books.
For pointing this out, you sir, are a racist! ;-)
p.s. and if you dare critique my spelling or sentence structure, you will then also be a sexist! ;-)
Hmm; well, I’m pretty sure that’s not the passive voice. It’s unclear about agency (and that’s your problem with it), and it’s in the past tense, but it’s not the passive voice. I hope “those of [you] who profess to teach writing” don’t teach this.
bodunky (if that’s your real name), maybe you did not read the part of the sentence that says, “or otherwise take the focus off of the actor.”
I did not say that his statement used passive voice. I referred to how Word is always reminding writers not to use passive voice, and that I have told my students that “sometimes writers deliberately use passive voice, or otherwise take the focus off of the actor, to deflect responsibility.” The “or otherwise” is in there because he did not use passive voice, but did deliberately take the focus off of himself as the actor.
The reason people have a problem with passive voice is that it takes the emphasis away from the actor, which often weakens the sentence. “Babe Ruth hit the home run” is active — it is much more direct than the passive, “The home run was hit by Babe Ruth.” The latter makes Babe Ruth a less important part of the sentence instead of the person responsible for the action. Writers should usually avoid this. But there are times they intentionally use passive voice, or otherwise take the focus off of the actor.
One of the missing ingredients of this incident is the collection of professional race baiters that usually collect to extort money or demand tribute. Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson are too busy for some reason.
Nevertheless, Scott, if we have to parse your actual statements to uncover this nuance, then you haven’t really done a good job as a writer, have you?
Poster bodunky was correct - the immediate implication of your article was that the punchy professor was using passive voice.
Just to complete your condescension to bodunky, and by extension, to all of us, you then proceed to explain in your comment why the passive voice is undesirable. I think bodunky knew this already. Taking focus off the actor is undesirable, sire, but so is arguing the wrong point so as to appear to be always right.
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“despite Microsoft Word’s helpful green squiggles imploring the use of active voice, sometimes writers deliberately use passive voice, or otherwise take the focus off of the actor, to deflect responsibility.”
I score that one for the Home Team. Visitors nil.
I too thought you were putting this forward as an example of passive voice. Why else go on so much about passive voice and Microsoft’s helpful green squiggles? Perhaps a slight edit is in order?
Alistair,
I don’t believe that was the immediate implication of my article. It was, however, the phrasing that Glenn Reynolds used in linking to the piece — “An Unfortunate Passive Voice” — so it is on the minds of readers before they even begin to read the piece, since most of the readers of this piece are coming from Instapundit (thanks for the link!). Maybe that was what popped out to Glenn as well, so maybe you are right that it was an immediate implication to some readers.
You’re accusing me of condescending to bodunky because I explained what passive voice actually is in my response. But he had just implied that I was teaching my students that something that is not passive voice is passive voice (that he did so in a snarky tone prompted my “maybe you didn’t read” reaction). So I clarified what passive voice is, not because I assumed he did not know, but because my point was that McIntyre’s use of language was serving the same purpose that passive voice sometimes serves — removing the actor’s prominence from the sentence. I don’t think I was unclear about that originally, but you could disagree.
Obviously, if I had made that point clear enough for bodunky the first time, I wouldn’t have had to respond at all. But apparently I did not, or he did not read carefully enough, or just likes to be snarky. You’ve made it clear that in your opinion the first is the case. I guess I will go cry now because something I wrote required a bit of clarification.
By the way, I don’t assume that everyone remembers grammar lessons from decades ago — plenty of educated people who write well can’t spit out the definition of active and passive voice, so I reminded readers so they would know what it was we were arguing about, which wasn’t the point of the post anyway — and I believe most readers do know that active/passive isn’t the point of the post.
Can we get back to the point of the post?
The point is not that I was being a grammar cop. We can all make mistakes when we write, or be less clear than we intend. I did not complain about McIntrye’s knowledge of active voice and passive voice. McIntyre’s statement did not unintentionally remove the emphasis from the actor. It deliberately distanced himself from responsibility.
Ah! The “Grammar Nannies” are here.
Since words do indeed have meaning, what exactly is the purpose of a “hot water heater”?
“Since words do indeed have meaning, what exactly is the purpose of a “hot water heater”?”
Excellent. But isn’t that what they call it? At least that’s what I’ve always heard it called. “You need a new hot water heater.”
I guess if your hot water isn’t hot enough, you need to heat it.
You ommitted (perhaps intentionally) the usual example: Nixon’s “Mistakes were made.”
Similarly, Obama in his remarks called Fort Hood a “tragedy.”
Wrong.
A tragedy is a blind, random event: your leaky water heater, or an earthquake, or a bus crash. A tragedy contains no element of will or malice.
Fort Hood was a *crime.* But BHO couldn’t bring himself to admit it, because that would have meant admitting other things he doesn’t want to acknowledge.
Entertaining to see the purple-picky-people arguing the details of your piece here. They become another asterisk for this excellent study in the Anthropology-of-the-Now, 2009. Some conclusions:
* We have a new MarieAntoinetteClass, and they are the African-American Elite.
* These new Queens have developed Olympian talents for shrugging off any portion of blame or responsibility.
* When someone is effective at pointing this out, Pawns volunteer to deflect from the Big Picture, fussy-butting on any petty detail in order to avoid the awful truth.
That isn’t the passive voice. It’s active voice intransitive. Please do not let this person teach Engilsh grammar. Nevertheless, it’s a total abdication of responsibility. “It just happened of its own volition.”
The way I read your post, you were chastising the “esteemed” professor for using the word “it” instead of “I”, i.e., the event did not explode, he exploded and should accept personal responsibility for that. I don’t see any reason for confusion on the part of other readers of your post.
In the African part of his African-American of his moniker it is OK to punch a women,so the passive fist is quite OK.
Bohemond: “A tragedy is a blind, random event … A tragedy contains no element of will or malice.”
Tragedies certainly can contain elements of will and malice. I think you are confusing ‘tragedy’ with ‘fatal accident’ or something like that. “Hamlet,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “MacBeth,” etc., were all tragic stories, and all had elements of human will. The murders at Ft. Hood were certainly crimes, and they were also tragedies.
And Janet, while I might trust you to teach English grammar, I would not trust you to teach spelling, unless there is such a language as “Engilsh,” of course. ;-)
Briefly, not every language shares our familiar categories of person, number, mood and voice. Speakers of those languages comprehend identity and responsibility for actions is ways which seem mysterious to us. Perhaps this McIntyre fellow is thinking in some other “Mutha” tongue.
Now among native speakers of Indo-European languages, we call this kind of talk “being a weasel.”
I always called them “water heaters”, maybe it’s a local dialect thing.
plutosdad,
I guess it is a dialect thing. I’m from NYC and now live near Philly. I’ll have to ask other people what they call it. It seems to be a widespread use. I googled “hot water heaters.” Many references to simply “water heaters,” but there are also references to “hot water heaters” and one site has that URL. So others out there use it or think their searchers are using it. I know it’s redundant, but I will probably always call it a hot water heater.
“The gun went off.”
“A (insert the type of crime) went bad.”
For some reason, nobody ever COMMITS these acts, they just happen.
This guy is a weasel for sure, and I bet he has lots of experience sucker punching women, and then ‘putting the focus’ elsewhere for the blame.
I’ve noticed that passive type of speech is a common tactic of abusers. It’s never their fault when they leave their girlfriend, mother, long-suffering friend, with a black eye or a busted nose. It is either the girl’s fault, or no one’s fault, an ‘event’ that ‘happened,’ like the sunrise.
Good post, but if you are teaching writing you should be clearer about the difference between the passive voice and the absent or unclear agent. The passive voice is not necessarily an attempt to deflect responsibility (or agency), and it’s not necessarily bad writing.
Consider these sentences: “Longer prison terms did not reduce recidivism” and “Recidivism was not reduced by longer prison terms”. If the active voice is “better writing,” it’s advantage isn’t great. And in neither sentence is there any doubt as to agency.
Now consider these sentences: “Longer prison terms did not reduce recidivism, but they did reduce deaths from AIDS” and “Recidivism was not reduced by longer prison terms, but deaths from AIDS was”. I would argue that the “better” sentence depends on the writer’s point of view, not on the rules of grammar.
PS - As a NY-er who now lives in NJ, it’s always been “hot water heater” - and I just bought one.
… its advantage …
“The passive voice is not necessarily an attempt to deflect responsibility (or agency), and it’s not necessarily bad writing.”
“I would argue that the “better” sentence depends on the writer’s point of view, not on the rules of grammar.”
We have no disagreement above, ronbo. The appropriateness of using passive voice depends on what the writer is trying to communicate and emphasize. The passive voice can be used to deflect responsibility, as in the Nixon example of “Mistakes were made.” But not all uses are for shifting responsibillity and there are legitimate uses for passive voice, as you note.
But I’ll disagree when you say that as a teacher of writing I “should be clearer about the difference between the passive voice and the absent or unclear agent,” since you don’t have any knowledge of the discussions in my classes and you don’t know how clear or unclear I was as a teacher of writing, not from the one sentence that mentions passive voice, more as an aside than a main point, in a single blog post. I didn’t write the post to explain passive voice to my readers; they are not my students. I wrote it to point out a high-profile example of someone using language to avoid taking responsibility for his actions — I doubt many readers will come away from reading my post without knowing that this is the main point.
When I discuss active/passive voice with students, I include various uses, including the kind of examples you mention. Sometimes passive voice is the better choice for the author’s objectives.
Now, McIntrye didn’t use passive voice, but his objective in phrasing his statement the way he did was to avoid taking responsibility for his actions. He said exactly what he meant to say. That, and not grammar, is the point.
Anyway, I am glad that you properly call it a hot water heater.
> “It was a very unfortunate event,” he said
> afterwards. “I didn’t mean for it to explode the way it
> did.”
So how DID he mean for it to explode?
Malclave, that’s good stuff — since we’re picking every nit in not only his statement but also my mention of passive voice, we might as well take it all literally — he seems to have wanted it to explode, just not in the way that it did. Are there other ways he had hoped the explosion would have transpired?
This is just the type of conduct we have come to expect from black professors these days. Of course it would be a hate crime in the reverse. Why hasn’t Obama stated the woman was being stupid yet? Welcome to Harlem, where racism is welcome, expected and black.
I have, so far, limited my responses to the comments about language.
Several of the other reader responses generalize about race. I shouldn’t have to write this — it should be a given in the blogosphere that bloggers don’t necessarily agree with comments by readers — but I will write it anyway so there will be no confusion: I do not necessarily share opinions expressed in reader comments, even though I am not going to take the time to dispute every comment that I disagree with or think has crossed into bigotry on whatever level.
Our site’s comment policies lean strongly toward free speech and even a comment some might find objectionable or racist won’t necessarily be deleted. That does not mean that I, or we as a site, endorse or agree with such comments.
I will limit my response to the latest comment.
Gernot, I work with black professors. They are my colleagues and friends. We have political and other disagreements. We are civil in our disagreement. (One of them writes for this site, expressing political opinions I do not share.) My black professor friends don’t rant to me about white privilege. They don’t rant about anything. They do not punch people in the face.
Whatever problems you, or I, or anyone has with Obama, or race relations, or the left, or whatever, let’s not make one incident bigger or more meaningful than it is, and let’s keep the focus on the person who did the punching. If there is a double standard, point to it. If there is a pattern or cultural movement, point to it. But even then, think before besmirching “black professors,” who are individuals before they are members of whatever group you might place them in.
I am not accusing you of bigotry — I can’t tell from one comment what anyone is. I just don’t think it’s fair to make the comment you made, in your first sentence especially.
This is very much the passive voice and here is why:
1. The statement starts with a dependent clause, i.e: “It was a very unfortunate event.”
An active voice would have been: “I didn’t mean for this unfortunate event to explode the way it did.”
2. A passive tone is also implemented into the main clause: “I didn’t mean for it to explode the way it did.” Though the speaker does use the word “I” in the sentence, which could suggest an active sentence, but the use of the pronoun “IT”, referring to the incident rather than “assault”, does in fact remove the ‘actor’ from the act.
In fact, if you heard this sentence out of context, you would have no clue of what he was talking about. Comic books perhaps?
To support Scott’s claim, this sentence was passive and was most likely composed by McIntyre’s lawyer. Passive sentences are always used through legal channels and public relations in almost every statement that is pending legal action.
The reason for passive sentences to be used during preliminary hearings is simply to issue a statement (because we all know silence, or pleading the fifth, could be publicly interpreted as a sign of guilt), without fully admitting to anything that could be damning in court.
In other words, McIntyre is playing the legal game. If you want proof, all you have to do is turn on CNN or FOX news for twenty minutes and you’ll be bombarded by defendants and politicians alike issuing these types of statements when defending any wrong doing.
What I don’t understand is the whole hubbub. I mean, seriously, it’s not like we haven’t heard this stuff before. Perhaps we should remain a tad bit rational and save the anger for an unfavorable verdict rather than the standard legal defense grammar of the defendant? Maybe? Possibly? You think?
Theodore Dalrymple, the remarkable chronicler of Britain’s decline in City Journal, devoted his first column to exactly this sort of language in which the speaker dodges responsibility. for events that he or she clearly controlled.
See “The Knife Went In” at http://www.city-journal.org/article01.php?aid=1371.
I should add to my Dalrymple comment : Dalrymple found this language common among the prisoners in his practice as a physician at a British prison, not among professors at an elite university.
“I didn’t mean for it to explode the way it did.”
“But officer, I didn’t shoot him - the gun just went off.”
you are all a bunch a pussies I want his fucking job
As a member of the Columbia Community, I’m sure McIntyre has been exposed to the Essential Policies handbook as part of his orientation to the University, and I’d have to assume as a man of color that he’s been through diversity training while at the University.
That said, in the Essential Policies handbook the definition of aggravated assault, and a hate crime were both clearly met during his loss of control, and I suspect numerous HR diversity policies of the University were also violated.
I think it’s safe to say had this been a white man punching a black woman, there would be numerous black representatives in the news threatening law suites if not prosecuted to the fullest. I’d also bet Columbia would have issued a statement releasing him from the University and severing all ties.
So when does the campus’s candle-light vigil against violence against women take place?
The mainstream media is less interested in covering this story than it is in covering the brutal Richmond High School gang rape (once it learned the victim was a 15-year-old white girl and the perps were mainly adult non-white males).
More egregious than hitting her, I heard a rumor that right before he struck her, he called her a “nappy headed ho”.