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Is 'The corridors flood with teenage noise, energy and emotion' a correct sentence? I say this in a passage but I think the correct version will be 'The corridorrs are flooded with teenage noise, energy and emotion'

Y.T.
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Syntactically, both versions are fine, and broadly speaking they mean the same. But idiomatically, stylistically, the "passive" (second) version would normally be preferred.

Arguably, the "active" (first) version may carry slightly stronger implications of "directed activity". That's to say, there's a stronger allusion to something causing the metaphorical flood, whereas the passive version focuses more on describing the flood.

Shifting to the more natural past tense, and simplfying, we have...

1: The room flooded with light (stylised, "poetic")
2: The room was flooded with light (normal descriptive prose style)

...where #1 might more naturally imply ...when he opened the curtains, as opposed to simply reporting the fact that the room was brightly lit.

Note that this (possible) distinction can only arise because semantically it's possible to flood [some place] with [something]. If we switch to a different verb, such as...

3: The garden teemed with life
4: The garden was teeming with life

...then I don't think it's meaningful to attempt to draw even a slight semantic distinction. But I still think the "active" version #3 is a bit more stylised / literary than passive #4.

FumbleFingers
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  • sorry for very late reply, but if I have to say "The corridors are flooded with teenage noise, energy and emotion" in active voice, shouldn't it be "Teenage noise, energy and emotion flood the corridors"? – Y.T. Sep 13 '20 at 14:21
  • @LearningMathematics: *to flood* is a "2-way" kind of verb, so it's okay to say The room flooded with light ("active") OR The room was* flooded with light* ("passive") OR Light flooded the room (another "active" usage, but with a different "subject"). You can't do that with my other example (Life teemed the garden isn't valid, but preposition-based Life teemed in* the garden* is at least "acceptable", even if it's not particularly likely compared to The garden teemed with* life*). – FumbleFingers Sep 13 '20 at 15:09