On Mon, Jul 12, 1999 at 03:45:32PM -0500, Richard Lawson wrote:

It was dusk, and the wind was hot and dry as it blew
across Hotaru's face as she sat in the grass.

<bapbapbapbap>

Avoid passive voice whenever possible, *especially* for
the first line of a story.

There's no passive voice in the indicated line.  It's rather
clunky, yes, but there's no passive voice.

"It was dusk" is passive.  

No, it isn't.  'was' is a linking verb, and does not express
any action.  It cannot be active or passive; the terms simply
don't apply if there's no action.

Think about it.  If it really is the passive voice, you can
convert it directly into the active voice, right?

eg.

The door was closed by Fred.

becomes

Fred closed the door.



So, taking the sentence:

It was dusk.

How do you propose to convert that into the active voice?

Nonword alert!  Nonword alert!  "Alright" is a
bastardization of "All right".  Not technically
correct, although its use has become so
proliferate that it's barely acceptable as slang
language in dialogue.

Well, if you want to be pedantic about it, yes.

However, when it comes to fanfiction writing, I'd say
that pedantry is only useful when trying to depict a
character who is pedantic.

Heh.  In one of those glass half empty/half full things, I prefer to
say that "slangy" is only useful when trying to depict a character who
is unusually slangy.  Otherwise, use the correct form.

The Oxford Dictionary of Current English says:

Although widely used, _alright_ is still nonstandard and is considered
incorrect by many people.

Nowhere is it indicated as slang.  If I was trying to indicate that
the speaker was being slangy, I might use something like 'awright'.

I might add that it's rather difficult to tell whether a speaker is
saying "All right" or "Alright". :)  

-- 
  -Sean Connor  (sec@konatsu.dhs.org)
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