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Comment by Donald | Hacker News Reader

Like everything else in the US military, there is a written standard to support this style. See Army Regulation 25-50, Section IV "The Army Writing Style" https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/r25_50....

> Army writing will be concise, organized, and to the point. Two essential requirements include putting the main point at the beginning of the correspondence (bottom line up front) and using the active voice (for example, “You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year”).

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The Air Force has a similar guide that has been around for decades, the "Tongue and Quill." We were introduced to it starting in officer training.

https://static.e-publishing.af.mil/production/1/saf_cio_a6/p...

Of course the Army name is practical and descriptive, and the Air Force name is whimsical.

Come to think of it that is a strangely poetic name for a military standard

As does CIA

https://fas.org/irp/cia/product/style.pdf

On the one hand - I really want to read that. On the other hand, should I download this PDF from the CIA?

That link isn’t the CIA.

That's the passive voice! The explanation for why their example of the active voice is in fact the passive voice is right below, in section "e". That's pretty funny.

Trying to make it active requires moving the key information to the end of the sentence:

"The time you spent in training last year entitles you to jump pay [for that time]."

Although style guides like this one usually advise against using passive voice because it makes things harder to read, clarity should be the goal, not just active voice. This is a good example of a reason you might prefer passive voice: because the verb's subject isn't the focus. Passive voice can also be clearer than active voice when there's no relevant or meaningful actor to use as the subject.

Perhaps "You deserve jump pay for time spent in training last year"?

Or "The Army will pay you for ..."

That is active voice, but subtly changes the meaning. “Deserve” suggests non-binding moral qualification, “are entitled to” suggests binding legal qualification. “You earned jump pay for...” is closer.

Honestly, though, this is a case where the usual purpose of active voice rules (to avoid deenohasizing or obscuring responsibility) is not actually frustrated even though the sample is in passive voice so while I wouldn't use it as an example of active voice I wouldn't necessarily avoid it even given an avoid-passive-voice guideline. (And I've reviewed documents under publication manuals with such guidelines.)

In another thread, I got to: "Applicable regulations entitle you to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year." For the passive reading I think that's the correct active version.

You qualify for..?

It's not really a passive sentence, even though it has all the attributes the Army apparently deems necessary and sufficient to declare it as such in section e.

But a passive sentence is one where the subject is absent - but in this sentence, the subject is 'you'. 'Entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year' is an adjectival phrase. The sentence makes an active statement about the recipient:

You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year.

is no more passive than

You are a fine soldier.

A passive version of this sentence would be more like

You are being granted jump pay for the time you spent in training last year.

The subject of the verb "to entitle" is that which grants entitlement. The recipient is the object. I think we can legitimately read the sentence as passive.

Active; "applicable regulations" are doing something:

"Applicable regulations entitle you to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year."

Passive; "applicable regulations" are still doing something:

"You are entitled by applicable regulations to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year."

Still passive; vague about what's doing something:

"You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year."

As you point out, "entitled" is often used as an adjective. I think you're right that the sentence can be read that way, and in that case it is indeed active.

After consideration, I think the passive read is more correct, but I can't yet put my finger on why.

https://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=3096

Was that the wrong link? I was excited that someone had done the digging in language log to find a post that clarifies (I'd bet there's a few), but that one doesn't seem relevant.

It seems to be relevant in that it describes how the common formation of adjectival phrases in English (from which these new transitive formations discussed in the Language Log are a deviation) is based on adjective + prepositional phrase, and our subject sentence follows that pattern - "entitled" is being used as an adjective, and "to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year" is a prepositional phrase.

You are entitled to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year

You are familiar with this aircraft

Nobody would argue that that second sentence is a 'passive sentence', and it consists - in this analysis - of exactly the same grammatical elements.

But this all just comes down to the fact that 'to be' is a weird verb and it screws with a lot of grammatical assumptions; that the way participial adjectives are used blurs the question of what is the 'verb' in a sentence, and even that the verb 'to entitle' is a strange one in that it is often tricky to pin down what would be the subject of an active sentence using entitle as a verb.

I think we can all agree that it's basically a terrible choice of a sentence if you want to provide a clear example of how to favor the active voice in writing :)

> "to jump pay for the time you spent in training last year" is a prepositional phrase.

It's an infinitival clause ('to' is not a preposition here).

I've been reading "jump pay" as a compound noun.

Oh, I see.

>the verb 'to entitle' is a strange one in that it is often tricky to pin down what would be the subject of an active sentence using entitle as a verb.

It isn't difficult at all. E.g. in "This coupon entitles them to cheese", "this coupon" is clearly the subject. You may be thinking about thematic structure more than grammatical relations.

So—if I am entitled, what is doing the entitling? You rewrote the word as active which I guess is a valid point but a complete departure from conversation and not at all in good faith, my friend.

If you are genuinely entitled, you are probably entitled by law, by convention, by the terms of some contract. There's some framework, and some reason within it, that you are owed the thing.

We also seem to use "entitled" to mean that someone thinks they are owed things when they aren't - you often find this in rants about individual jerks or millennials in general. There's no subject to be had in that use because the entire point is that it is not legitimate.

I think the latter sense is always an adjective. The former sense clearly can be a transitive verb, and I have not found a seemingly grammatical utterance that can't be described that way (I think - IANALinguist). The fact that the subject can be left unspecified is a feature of the passive construction in general, and an often-stated motivation for some of the criticism it receives.

I think you might have misread my post (?) I was just giving an example of an active voice sentence with 'entitle'. There is nothing special about 'entitle' that makes it difficult to identify what the grammatical subject of the sentence is.

My post was in response to the claim that "it is often tricky to pin down what would be the subject of an active sentence using entitle as a verb".

It's maybe obliquely relevant, but I don't think it actually clears up any of the questions at hand.

> "entitled" is being used as an adjective

But... I think that's always kinda what's going on with the passive? I can call someone entitled (although it usually takes a different connotation), but I can also call something "thrown" (eg. "The thrown ball strikes the catcher's mitt."). I think it's nonetheless uncontroversial that "the ball was thrown" is passive voice.

FWIW, checking a couple dictionaries (MW and AHD, chosen for being freely searchable online rather than quality) both list "entitle" as a transitive verb and seem (harder to be sure of with the interface) to omit separate mention of "entitled".

Isn't the subject you, the verb "to be" (are) - and the reminder a describing clause?

You run quickly.

You are a good boy.

You are entitled to receive praise.

Ed: but "you qualify for pay" might be better active voice here?

Ed2: I see jameshart made a similar point more eloquently about "adjectival phrase"

"Quickly" modifies the verb, "a good boy" is a noun phrase.

"You are smart" is a better analogue, clearly active voice. "You are hit" is another analogue, clearly passive.

I still believe that we can read the original sentence in the latter way - with "entitled" a verb used passively. I remain unsure as to whether we can read it the other way - with "entitled" as adjective.

"are" in the concluding sentence of thread parent is equivalent to "are being" in your concluding sentence. "granted" is equivalent to "entitled". In a passive-voice sentence like this, the object of the verb is made to seem like the subject, but the object it remains.

I'd argue it's active. But the choice of verb - "to be entitled to" - is poor. A conditional "claim" would make for a better active sentence: "You can claim jump pay for the time..."

Argue all you want, but it’s still passive voice. The sentence does not tell the reader who or what is the source of entitlement. Even if it did, it may still be passive voice (You are entitled … by AR XX-X …). The same sentence in active voice is “Army Regulation XX-X entitles you to jump pay for …”

Your suggested improvement is in the active voice, but it’s still wordy. Using can weakens a statement, so look to eliminate this worthless verb. Prefer will or in this case get to the point with “Claim jump pay on Form DDXXXX for the time …”

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