foul they may have committed. In other words, drop the subject, get off
the hook.
2
Beat around the bush
Jane Austen is a master of poking fun at her characters so
euphemistically that it seems almost polite, and the passive voice is one
of her favorite methods for doing that.
Example: “[He] pressed them so cordially to dine at Barton Park every
day till they were better settled at home that, though his
entreaties
were carried
to a point of perseverance beyond civility,
they could not give offense.” —Jane Austen,
Sense and Sensibility
Austen could have rephrased this sentence like so:
“Though Mr. Middleton carried his entreaties to a point of perseverance
beyond civility, they could not give offense.”
Though maybe she means something closer to:
“Mr. Middleton pushed his invitations beyond the point of politeness and
into pushiness, but he still meant well.”
In cases like this, the passive voice allows for more polite phrasing,
even if it’s also a little less clear.
3
Make your reader pay more attention to the something
This is like the president getting sworn in: the thing that gets the
action of the verb is more important than the people performing the
action.