Olga
Made by ... (someone) Goog morning (or evening) to all the members of the community! I'm writing an essay and I was thinking about the use of the passive voice in a sentence which include the words "made by". When I want to use an object pronoun such as "me, him, her", can I say "made by her" or it sounds strange? For hence: "As a consequence of the Queen’s patronage, she became more and more popular and members of the nobility all wanted portraits made by her". Is ot ok? Or I must replace the pronoun with a more appropriate word, for example, with the surname of the painter at genitive? "All wanted X's portraits".
Nov 15, 2017 10:31 AM
Answers · 4
2
Painters make or paint portraits. I don't think the Queen has this skill! If you want to refer to the object of the portrait, you say "portrait of e.g. the Queen". You understand the grammar of passive forms. You may need to practice using them naturally. If you are going to use the construction "passive form + by + agent, it is usually because you want to place more attention on the object of the action, while also identifying the agent. e.g. I need coffee to get through my day. My coffee is usually brought to me by my wife during lessons. (I do a lot in the house too, by the way)
November 15, 2017
Thank you Annie! You and Michael helped me a lot!
November 15, 2017
Hi Olga, It sounds ok to say "members of the nobility all wanted portraits made by her", but in my opinion you would say it this way if you wanted to emphasise the word 'her', in relation to another person. However, the sentence you wrote makes it unclear who you are talking about. "As a consequence of the Queen’s patronage, she became more and more popular and members of the nobility all wanted portraits made by her". - in this sentence it sounds as though you are talking only about the queen, and that the queen is the portrait maker. It might be better to say ""As a consequence of the Queen’s patronage, the woman artist became more and more popular and members of the nobility all wanted portraits made by her". I hope this helps!
November 15, 2017
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