“The timid fellow writes The meeting will be held at seven o’clock because somehow that says to him, ‘Put it this way and people will believe you really know.’ Purge this quisling thought! Don’t be a muggle! Throw back your shoulders, stick out your chin, and put that meeting in charge! Write The meetings’s at seven. There… ! Don’t you feel better?”

• Writing passive is being timid?
• Oh yeah, that sounds like a sentence I would write.
• And that’s because of horrible self-esteem?
• Sheesh, what doesn’t this plague affect?
• Sure it feels better Steve, but it’s kind of… b… b… bold, don’t you think?

“I’m convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing. If one is writing for one’s own pleasure, that fear may be mild – timidity is the word I’ve used here. If, however, one is working under deadline – a school paper, a newspaper article, the SAT writing sample – that fear may be intense. Dumbo got airborne with the help of a magic feather; you may feel the urge to grasp a passive verb or one of those nasty adverbs for the same reason. Just remember before you do that Dumbo didn’t need the feather; the magic was in him.”