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The Economist on Mitchell Baker
Sara Chan writes "The Economist has a
story about a trapeze artist who, in her spare time, is the Chief Lizard Wrangler at a non-profit. You perhaps know her as
Mitchell Baker, leader of Firefox." From the article: "Ms Baker gradually found herself the leader of this project. Perhaps this is because she is a somewhat unusual member of the Netscape diaspora. For a start, she is a woman in a community populated, as one (male) colleague puts it, by geeky males with 'spare time and no social life'. Ms Baker herself has never even written code. She studied Chinese at Berkeley, and then became a lawyer--her role at the old Netscape was in software licensing. On all technical matters, she defers to Brendan Eich, her chief geek."
Not sure if you're trolling or serious,
I was not trolling, no.
but nothing the GP wrote was in the passive voice. The GP provided a clear subject, object and predicate in each sentence.
This:
She gave the impression that she needs to be replaced
You say:
If he had been using the passive voice, he would have written: "It was said she had no technical knowledge, but is a lawyer. The impression was given that she needs to be replaced by someone more capable." Your criticism would then be valid.
But no. The phrase "She gave the impression" is passive voice, disguised with a sneaky reversal. You see, an impression is not something that is given, it is something that is received. The author was expressing an opinion, not reporting a fact.
Like you, I wonder why.