Nuts and Bolts: the mediopassive voice.

 According to the Wikipedia entry on the Ukrainian language, the majority of Ukrainian speakers live in 'European Russia' which includes Belarus and Ukraine.

I've made a request to get that changed soon.

Anyway, the Ukrainian language sometimes uses a mediopassive voice. That's quite odd, because if there's one thing the Ukrainians are not, it's medium-passive.

We don't really have a mediopassive voice in English, though you see something pretty much like it in expressions like these apples cook down well. 

The mediopassive is used in various ways in various languages. It's sometimes used if you're doing something for your own benefit. 

If you sacrifice a bull in order to cure your acne (unlikely, I know) then you might use the mediopassive voice; but if you sacrificed it to cure your girlfriend's bad breath then you'd use an active voice. 

If you are fighting in the mediopassive voice then the implication is that you're fighting each other, and not an outsider. You might use the mediopassive voice if you're going on a diet, or becoming invisible, or describing some state that isn't active, like being frightened or pleased, or perhaps being a citizen of a country. 

Of course there are also all kinds of special times it is used in various languages just as a matter of convention.

It should go without saying that every language that uses it, as every language that doesn't, it a shining treasure of the world.

Word To Consider Today: mediopassive. The medio- bit is to do with being medium, from the Latin medius, middle. The passive bit comes from the Latin passīvus, which means susceptible of suffering, from patī, to undergo.