When I was in primary school in the 1960s, we were taught that newspapers would always report road accidents as "The car left the road and collided with a tree", or "A Georgetown man was killed in a head-on collision between two cars on Mountain Drive." - almost as if the cars themselves had agency. We were taught there were good reasons why newspapers did this - but that we pupils should not.

But 50 years later, young university graduates entering my field of work are STILL inextricably wedded to the agentless passive voice. If they didn't learn it at school, then the universities must be to blame.