'Catrin told me' is an active sentence, and 'I was told by Catrin' is passive. In a passive sentence, the subject is the person or thing affected by the action of the verb.
Do you know how to use the passive voice to change the focus of a sentence? Test what you know with interactive exercises and read the explanation to help you.
When you're passive, you don't participate much and you're not very emotional. In chemistry, passive means to be "unreactive except under special or extreme conditions; inert."
Existing, conducted, or experienced without active or concerted effort: "Although tick paralysis is a reportable disease in Washington, surveillance is passive, and only 10 cases were reported during 1987-1995" (US Department of Health and Human Services).
Grammar (opposed to active) of, relating to, or being a voice, verb form, or construction that expresses an action that is done to rather than by the subject: In a passive sentence, the subject undergoes the action of the verb but does not perform it.
The Conversation: Venn: the man behind the famous diagrams – and why his work still matters today
April 2023 marks the 100th anniversary of the death of mathematician and philosopher John Venn. You may well be familiar with Venn diagrams – the ubiquitous pictures of typically two or three ...
Venn: the man behind the famous diagrams – and why his work still matters today
In his book The Mathematical Universe, mathematician William Dunham wrote of John Venn’s namesake legacy, the Venn diagram, “No one in the long history of mathematics ever became better known for less ...