The verbs processes are made of
Eight verbs that appear in almost every description of how something gets done — at work, in a factory, in a kitchen, in an office.
Match each to what it actually means in a process.
Eight verbs. Match each to what happens at that stage.
The same process, twice
Version one · how a complaint is handled
A customer sends the complaint to the general inbox. Then somebody in the team reads it. After that, an agent logs it in the system. The system gives it a reference number. Next, a supervisor decides which department should have it. Somebody in that department contacts the customer within five working days. Sometimes the department cannot decide it, so they send it upstairs. A manager then makes the final decision, and an administrator writes to the customer to close it.
Version two · the same process
The complaint is sent to the general inbox and read the same day. It is logged, given a reference number, and passed to the department that should have it. The customer is contacted within five working days. If it cannot be decided at that level it is escalated, and a final decision is made by a manager — the one person in this process worth naming, because the decision is theirs. The complaint is then closed in writing.
Five questions. The first three are about the difference; the last two are about why it matters.
1. How many different grammatical subjects does version one use?
2. What is the subject of nearly every sentence in version two?
3. Version two is shorter. What has been removed?
4. Version two names exactly one person — a manager. Why that one?
5. So what is the passive actually doing here?
Two positions for the same event
Active and passive, side by side
| Active | Passive | |
|---|---|---|
| Shape | subject + verb + object | subject + be + past participle (+ by …) |
| Example | An agent logs the complaint. | The complaint is logged. |
| Front of the sentence | The doer | The thing it happens to |
| The doer | Always named | Named only if it is news |
| Good for | Who did what — stories, blame, credit | Processes, systems, and anything you follow through several stages |
| Portuguese | Um agente registra a reclamação. | Registra-se a reclamação — different machinery, same job |
One thing to notice now, before the rules arrive. Look again at version two. Of its seven passive verbs, six have no by at all — and nothing is missing. The one that keeps its agent keeps it because the agent is the point.
In real English, most passives have no agent. The by-phrase is the exception, not the finished version.
Six stages of how a library book gets back on the shelf. Put them in order.
- It is checked for damage, and anything serious is set aside.
- Each book is reshelved by whoever is on the floor at the time.
- The book is taken out of the returns box at half past nine.
- The trolleys are taken up in the lift twice a day.
- It is scanned, and the loan is closed on the borrower’s record.
- Undamaged books are sorted onto trolleys by floor.
Turning the camera round
One to three words per gap. Every gap is part of a passive verb. Keep the subject on the same thing.
The samples to the laboratory on Monday and the same afternoon. Each one a reference number, which on the outside of the box. Anything that fails again, and if it fails twice the whole batch .
Six sentences. One error each.
1. The complaint is log in the system.
2. The samples are sent by us to the laboratory by us on Monday.
3. The book was returned by somebody yesterday. — the agent tells the reader nothing
4. The forms is checked in Leeds.
5. The decision is make by a manager.
6. It was happened last week.
Something you know how to explain
Task card · Speaking · Pairs · 2 minutes each, twice
Explain a process you genuinely know: how your rubbish is collected, how a request is handled where you work, how a dish is made in your family, how you get a document stamped.
Two minutes. Then your partner tells you a number, and you do it again.
- Round one: explain it however comes naturally. Do not think about grammar.
- Listener: count how many times the grammatical subject changes. Just the count.
- Round two: same process, thirty seconds shorter, and keep the subject on the thing as long as you can.
- Listener: count again. Report both numbers, and say which version was easier to follow.
What the number means. Every time the subject changes, your listener has to work out who is being talked about now. Two or three changes in a two-minute explanation is a well-told process. Nine is a listener who has stopped following and is being polite about it.
What the second round produced
Five sentences of the kind round two produces. Fix each.
1. The bins are collect on Tuesday morning.
2. The rubbish is taken to the depot by the council workers by lorry.
3. The form is send to head office.
4. The onions are chop and then they are fry.
5. The document was stamped by somebody at the counter. — the person is not the point
One subject, held
Three questions. Thirty seconds.
1. What does the passive put at the front of the sentence?
2. Most passives in real English…
3. Why did round two get easier to follow?
Next. Four real process descriptions — a factory, a kitchen, a hospital corridor and a council office — and what each one does with the people in it.