The passive voice is often maligned by grammazons as a bad writing habit. Or, to put it in the active voice, grammazons across the English-speaking world malign the passive voice as a bad writing habit.

In general, the active voice makes your writing stronger, more direct, and, you guessed it, more active. The subject is something, or it does the action of the verb in the sentence. With the passive voice, the subject is acted upon by some other performer of the verb. (In case you weren’t paying attention, the previous two sentences use the type of voice they describe.)

But the passive voice is not incorrect. In fact, there are times when it can come in handy. Read on to learn how to form the active and passive voices, when using the passive voice is a good idea, and how to avoid confusing it with similar forms. See More . . . 

The Quick Answer

What is the difference between past and passed?

Passed is the past tense of to pass. For everything else, use past.

Past or Passed?

There is often confusion over the words passed and past. This confusion occurs most commonly with the following expressions:

• Passed away
• Passed a test
• Past a date
• Past sell by date
• Past caring
• Past few years
• Past midnight
• The past weekend
• Run past
• See past

Confusion arises because both versions are sometimes possible:

• It is past the deadline.
• You have passed the deadline.
• See More . . .