Re: emacs documentation: what's active voice, passive voice?

[Russ P.]

On Oct 4, 11:48 am, Alan Mackenzie <a...@muc.de> wrote:
> > For technical writing, I favor active voice where appropriate, but in
> > some cases I think passive voice is preferable. Consider, for example,
> > "The parameters were perturbed, and the test was run again." I could
> > rewrite that in active voice as "We varied the parameters and ran the
> > test again." But what if there is no "we", only "I"? Then I would have
> > to write "I varied the parameters and ran the test again." That just
> > doesn't strike me as good style for a technical paper. The point is not
> > who did it but that it was done. What difference would it make if a
> > monkey did it, as long as he did it right?
>
> Maybe the parameters might be less perturbed at being varied by a monkey
> than by your good self.  Who knows?
>
> > Russ P.
>
> --
> Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
> ;-)

I realize that you are kidding, but to perturb a parameter means to
vary it slightly.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbation_theory