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Change the voice from active to passive of the following sentence:
I had a car.

The active sentence is "I had a car". In passive form is it "a car had had been by me" or some other answer? I found this question online on a page for competitive exams.

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  • No passive form. I think it gas no passive form
    – Samin
    Oct 23, 2018 at 14:09

4 Answers 4

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The consensus from the comments is that

  1. The passive of this sentence would be "A car was had by me", BUT
  2. this is not idiomatic English: HAVE, in the sense of possess, is not ordinarily employed in the passive voice.
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    This is so, but I might point out that "had" in the sense of "fooled", which is slightly slang, is generally in the passive voice. "You've been had" means that you've been fooled or "taken" or "conned." Edit: I see Fumblefingers has pointed out this usage also, but I think of this as slang. I can't think of another example of passive voice of have that is common.
    – BobRodes
    Aug 5, 2013 at 3:53
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    @BobRodes Good point; I wrote too quickly in the effort to get this off the Unanswered list. Fixed now.
    – StoneyB on hiatus
    Aug 5, 2013 at 8:20
  • A car was possessed by me or A car was owned by me would work a little better, but still sounds at least a bit awkward in normal speech/writing.
    – LawrenceC
    Jun 26, 2015 at 20:36
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I think the correct answer would be:

A car had been had by me.

Because the finite form of the verb is changed (to be + past participle).

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  • 2
    Since the original is simple past (had and not had had), a car was had by me would fit better, though this would still be quite an unusual thing to say.
    – choster
    Sep 7, 2017 at 15:20
  • @choster Maybe you are right. But yeah still, unusual !!!
    – Harshil Dave
    Sep 9, 2017 at 8:55
-1

I had a car

is active voice

A car was owned by me
A car was possessed by me

would be acceptable passive voice

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    But those are the passive voice equivalents of "I owned a car" and "I possessed a car" respectively. Neither one is "I had a car" in passive voice.
    – Laurel ♦
    Nov 7, 2018 at 16:48
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I was found/seen to have a car.

or

a car was owned by me

or

it was found that I had a car.

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    You should probably correct the typos in these examples.
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Jun 26, 2015 at 20:20
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    Welcome to ELL :-). This is a website about language, so correct spelling and grammar are important. The help centre specifies that you ought to write to the best of your ability. Aside from that it is always good to explain your answer a bit, not just give solutions: this would help both the OP and the future users of the website to solve similar problems on their own. Thanks!
    – Lucky
    Jun 27, 2015 at 0:01
  • The third one is not even passive voice.
    – user253751
    Nov 16, 2021 at 15:50

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