The passive voice is known to me.

Recently over at Language Log there have been a number of posts about passive voice, although when I say recently I should qualify it by pointing out that these are only the latest round in a long running series of posts.

Now as anyone will tell you I am as determinedly descriptive as the next determinedly descriptive grammarian but I am a little disturbed by the phenomenon these posts are describing. The passive voice is, or at least has historically been, a construction where the object of a verb (the thing or person it's being done to) is given prominence by being placed in what is usually the subject position and the subject (the thing or person doing it) is either left out altogether or replaced with some form of agent construction (for example a by...).

So

I kicked the cat. - active voice

The cat was kicked. - passive voice

This is, as Language Log notes, often being replaced with a new definition by newspapers and less grammatically savvy pundits. They use the phrase "passive voice" to mean any construction that is vague about agency. So they would claim that

Somebody kicked the cat.

was passive voice, which it certainly isn't.

There are plenty of examples to be found on Language Log and I don't really want to go into them here. The treatment of the topic over there is far better than anything I'm likely to write.

What I would like to go into is a difficulty this presents to me as a teacher. The level that I teach is the one where the difference between passive and active voice is normally taught so should I go on teaching what I know to be grammatically accurate or should I start teaching that any construction where we are avoiding responsibility is called "passive"?

It's a no-brainer really. Of course I shall go on teaching the passive voice as I have always taught it but I'll add a note that they will see the phrase used by people who don't know or don't care what it means. The thing is that this is a distinction that I think needs to be maintained. If this new usage takes hold then we are left without a name for the grammatical construction in question, we will either have to devise something else to call it or teach it as a construction without having any way to refer to it. I know it's only a name for a particular bit of grammar but names are important. By diluting the meaning to one which includes not only the original meaning but a whole host of others we'll lose the original meaning altogether.

The passive voice will be lost.