The passive, as has already been mentioned in the Accidence, is impersonal. Käytetään means there is a using, or one uses, people use. The clearest proof of the real character of the form is to be found in the fact that the verb substantive olla, to be, has a so-called passive.
Examples:—Niin kohta kun ollaan tultu, as soon as people come. Ennen oltiin terveempiä, people were healthier formerly. Siihen oltaneen tyytyväisiä, this will probably prove satisfactory (people will be satisfied with this). Järvellä oltaessa tuuli kovasti, while they were on the lake, the wind blew violently.
(1) The passive of ordinary verbs is used absolutely; that is to say, no noun is connected with it as subject or object. Koulussa kirjoitetaan ja luetaan, they read and write in the school. Helsingissä huvitellaan paljo talven aikoina, there is much amusement in Helsingfors in winter time. Suomen järvissä ja joissa kalastetaan, people fish (or there is fishing) in the lakes and rivers of Finland.
(2) As the above examples show, the passive represents the action of a verb without designating the agent. It is not unnatural that such forms should be used in an imperative or optative sense, for the second singular of the imperative is simply the root of the verb. It is true that the imperative is the closed root, due to the loss of k, but like the passive it has no sign of person.
This use of the passive for the imperative is particularly common in dialects, though it is also found in the literary language. Its usual meaning is ‘Let us.’ Mennään sisään, let us go in. Luetaan, let us read, or it’s time to read. Lähdetään kotia, we ought to go home. Mennäänkö jalan vain ajetaanko hevosella? Shall we go on foot, or take a carriage?
(3) This use of the passive for the imperative is important as explaining the common use of the form with a nominative case. Such a phrase as mies tunnetaan can be correctly translated as the man is known; but there is no doubt that the nominative is really the object of an impersonal verb, which naturally remains invariable, whatever the noun is. Now the object of the imperative is also put in the nominative and not in the accusative, though both in the case of the imperative and the passive it may be put in the partitive, if partial. It would seem that in these forms of the verbs, where the agent is not denoted by any suffix, it was felt that the sense was sufficiently clear without adding any termination to the noun to mark its exact relation to the verb.
The object of the passive, as above stated, can be either in the nominative, if total, or in the partitive, if partial.
a. Nominative. Koira ajetaan huoneesta ulos, the dog is sent out of the room. Palvelija lähetetään viemään kirjettä postiin, the servant is sent to take a letter to the post. Hevoset valjastetaan, the horses are being harnessed. Ruis kylvetään syksyllä, rye is sown in the autumn. Keskellä yötä sammutetaan tulet, the lights are put out at midnight. Tässä sodassa tapettiin viisikymmentä tuhatta miestä, fifty thousand men were killed in this war.
b. Partitive. Miksi sanotaan sitä Englannin kielellä? What is that called in English? Jos ei aleta varhain, niin ei työtä saada aikanansa valmiiksi, the work won’t be ready in time if not begun early. Poikaa ei vielä pantu kouluun, the boy was no longer sent to school. Ei vielä ollut uutta kirkkoa rakennettu, the new church had not yet been built. Ei kynttilätä sytytetä ja panna wakan ala, neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, S. Matt. v. 15.