Is it correct? | soup that eats like a meal
Is it correct? Soup that eats like a meal
Introduction:
I'm sure you liked the phrase on the title and you're excited to know about it, but for your information, it's not a complete sentence.
To make it a complete sentence, the definite
article ‘THE’ should be placed at the beginning of the phrase. In other words,
the complete sentence should be “The soup that eats like a meal.” But I
think English speakers do not have any difficulty with the phrase. They
know that there is an article at the beginning of the sentence and it is
clearly understood; it does not matter to them. To tell you the truth, most
English speakers don’t even know that ‘THE’ is called the ‘definite
article.’ They know that ‘THE’ is needed in front of the phrase to make it
natural sounding.
But that is not my question.
My question is whether the particular English sentence is grammatically correct or not. “Is it right?”
Superfluous, but not useless:
Now another question may arise here, ‘Do
we eat or drink soup?’
When asked Aunt Google, she said, “listen child! The people of the olden days used to say: "Everyone has some fault.”
My own opinion is that we chew the soup and also drink it because the soup contains several ingredients that need to be chewed. Now, let's get to the actual topic. Recently, I've noticed all the weird things going on in Aunt Google's chamber! One day, for some unknown reason, I was looking for soup on Amazon. Suddenly my attention was caught by a peculiar phrase on a soup can. The phrase was, “soup that eats like a meal” Sorry to say but I have the vision of a vulture! So it was a bit awkward in my eyes. I had to annoy Aunt Google again. And what Aunt Google started telling me was extremely alarming and scary.
A silly attempt to explain a grammar rule:
There is a very popular saying: “Danger often comes where it is feared.”
I always try to avoid the discussion
about “Grammar”. I don't want to talk
about it, but there's no way that grammar would leave me alone.
Aunt Google said, "Didn't you study
active and passive voice when you were a student? You neglected your studies
and that is why you are now so ignorant. Listen, now I will try to explain this
"active voice and passive voice" part of grammar to you with some
example sentences.”
I told myself this "When I was in school, I must have studied active voice and passive voice carefully, but there were no such sentences."
Anyway, without delay Aunt Google
started trying to make me understand the topic. But I have to tell you, Aunt
Google is always a real chatterbox, she never stops talking.
So she starts her age-old repetition:
“Listen to me, oh my dear child, you think that I know everything. But actually, I don't know anything. In fact, I have many friends all over the world. They love me so much that every time I ask them a question, whoever knows it, answers me immediately. And without any doubt, you believe, that I can give answers to all your questions. Wait, now I'll try to make it easier for you to understand. The moment I wanted to know the meaning of your sentence, without delay “Merriam-Webster” sent me the answer. And you know what? Now I will tell you the answer exactly the way “Merriam-Webster” explained it to me. https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/mediopassive-middle-voice-usage-verbs
Suppose, you have written a simple
sentence like: “The boy opened the
window.” This sentence is in the active voice, you know it, and its form in the
passive voice would be: “The window was opened by the boy.” Right? I know you
have started mumbling, saying, “I already know all these things.” But, now be
prepared to handle the shock. Now I am
going to tell you something about a kind of “voice” that, you may not even have
heard of. It is known as the “middle voice”, some even call it the mediopassive
voice! It doesn't matter what it is; you don’t have to bother about its name.
Now, look carefully at the sentence structure, and how the sentence is formed.
In the active voice, the subject of the
sentence performs the action of the verb on the target. However, in the passive
voice, the object of the sentence, in other words, the target of the action is
the main objective. The verb acts on the subject, provided the verb is a
transitive verb.
But, in the example above, it is clearly visible that the verb "open" is an intransitive verb. Moreover, it is clear that the subject of the sentence receives the action, which is indicated by the verb. As if the window is being opened, as usually happens in the case of the passive voice. So, we have to understand here exactly what has happened in this case. This type of sentence falls under the category of middle voice.”
Let's take another example sentence from the "Merriam-Webster" dictionary and break it down into simple terms to better understand the process. Suppose the sentence is: "The dish ate salty." Note carefully the structure of this particular sentence here is not like the usual sentence in the active or passive voice that we normally find. Based on my limited knowledge of grammar, I'll do my best to explain it.
“The dish ate salty.”
This very sentence is not acting the way the active voice should act because the dish is not eating anything; I mean it is not performing the action of the verb itself. You can also notice that it is not even like the passive voice. Because in this type of sentence it is not possible to keep any object. That is, there is no person or object that receives the action of the verb. Here the sentence is such that we can easily remove the concept of the active and passive voice from here. And we can keep our main focus just on the verb. We can explain exactly how the verb is performing its action. But we have to keep one thing in our mind, in order to use this type of sentence we have to follow certain conditions. There has to be an indirect performer, be it a human or an animal, who usually performs the action of the verb. Here the phrase is “The dish ate”. From this phrase, it is clearly understood that a human being has performed the act of eating. And this is the most important aspect of this sentence. We can also use this structure in the case of negative sentences. Such as: “Cold dish doesn’t taste well.” We use this middle voice structure in a sentence when it is used for natural occurrences and normal events. You cannot use this middle voice for particularly special occasions or situations. Just to talk about normal and casual things or daily life events, you can use this middle voice.
You may ask me why, as a "non-English speaker", I liked this sentence pattern. To tell you the truth, the sentence structure gave me a special kind of excitement and enjoyment, which drove me crazy to know more about it. There is also another interesting thing. Due to its strange structure, conservatives do not want to accept this change in their sentence pattern. Most probably, I may be wrong, except for the “English language”; most languages have this kind of sentence structure. Probably, over time, the English language has been influenced by them. It’s a fact that Language is ever-changing and we cannot deny it. It always flows like a river. Not only the English language but is equally applicable to all other languages in the world. If you take a look at social media, you will notice that this kind of application is becoming popular everywhere. If you watch cooking shows on TV, you'll notice they say something like: “It eats salty.” And the mothers now say that: ‘The dress wears well. My little darling loves it.’ I once saw an ad on a billboard that said: ‘The granary wants a billion dollars.’ I recently went to a book fair where I saw an author saying: ‘My new book is selling well.’
Conclusion:
Going through these sentences, we can
obviously say that this sentence structure is gaining popularity day by day. I
think you will love this middle voice too. And just in case, if you like it,
feel free to use it, and in this way, it will become more popular. Remember,
there is no such authority that decides the rules of a language. In the end, the
mass will decide what should be kept and what should be discarded. Your expectations
or your opinion will not decide the rules of the language. If
you like the middle voice, you will use it. And in this way, you can encourage
others to use it. Only then will it become more and more popular. Don't you want
to see the language change and improve? If so, then you be the change. You
participate in the improvement of the language. And if you like the topic,
don't forget to post your opinion in the comment box below. And by the way,
please try making your own sentences and post them in the box below so others
can read them and are also encouraged to use the style.
Well, no more today; we'll see you soon with another exciting topic like this, until then, stay well, read good books, watch nice videos in English and try to speak in English as much as possible. Thanks!
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That’s right we eat soup and not drink it.
ReplyDeleteInteresting!
ReplyDeleteI never heard of this what you called middle voice before. But I have noticed that we have this type of application in our Asian languages. Thanks for the great content as usual.
ReplyDeleteThat's great news. Thanks!
ReplyDelete