PBS: Foster Steals the Show!

Hey guys this is a fictitious play about a PBS scout trying to get a new show on the air. The executives have pitching the idea about a show dedicated to the study and origins of language and they are particularly interested in the decline of grammar in America and how that affects the U.S. on a global scale. Tommy Hammons, the PBS scout, is sent to the office of David Foster to try and let him know he was not selected for the show, but Foster’s incessant defense of his paper, “Tense Present,” persuades Tommy to give him another shot.

Setting: A full, bright office with hanging plants near the windows. A sign on the wall that says “To err is human and grammar will make you divine.” The desk is scattered with students’ papers and there is a paper-weight that has Foster’s family inside of it. The camera pans over to Tommy looking the office over as David Foster comes in wearing a Turtle-neck sweater with a pair of corduroy pants and hushpuppies. He’s also wearing a pair of wire-rim glasses that he never got rid of from the sixties and he’s smoking a pipe.

Foster: Well, good day Tommy

Tommy: Hi Dr. Foster

Foster: Uh, I believe we had a meeting today about my paper, Tense Present.

Tommy: Yes. Well, that’s what I need to talk to you about.

Foster: About? Why, what’s wrong?

Tommy: Dr. Foster, PBS just isn’t ready for a show that is based on your paper.

Foster: Are you kidding me? Language is everything and everywhere; it’s what let’s us have anything to do with one another; it’s what separates us from the animals; Genesis 11:7-10 and so on. (Page 41 classmates)

Tommy: Yes, I know. I read the paper…bu-

Foster: Did you? Do you remember how I said that “…good writing is only as good as the principles on which it’s based” (43).

Tommy: Uh-huh. But what does that mean, exactly.

Foster: Well, “America is in the midst of a protracted Crisis of Authority in matters of language” (43).

Tommy: That sounds familiar?

Foster: It should be. It’s in my paper. Shall I continue?

Tommy nods his head in abeyance

Foster: You see there are two camps. The Descriptivists and the Prescriptivists. The Prescriptivists are like the Republicans. They’re conservative, while the Descriptivists are more “liberal” like the Democrats.

Tommy: Okaaay

Foster: The Descriptivists view writing as self-exploratory and expressive while the Prescriptivists look for systematic grammar, usage, semantics, rhetoric, etc (45).

Tommy: Yes, I know all that. But, what’s the big deal between these two camps? Why are they always fighting?

Foster: The Desciptivists believe that traditional English is conceived and carried on by WASPS.

Tommy: Right. Basically, old white guys who believe they know all and are all.

Foster: Right. But we got to have some form of unity or all hell will break out. Take for instance this Scientific Method philosophy that the Descriptivists have on language. They have these five rules, right. The first one says Language changes constantly.

Tommy: Well, it does.

Foster: Yeah. But, how much and how fast? (45).
Tommy: Look, can you just summarize everything you want to tell me. I’m getting very tired and I still got to read this paper by Larry Beason called “Ethos and error: How business People React to Errors”

Foster: Okay. In a nut-shell, you cannot have grammar without content and vice-versa. How can a person appreciate a significant thought without wading through all the syntax errors? Descriptivists believe some of these rules are arbitrary or even inconsequential (48). But, it’s not just what we say but how we want that other person to respond (50).
I’ll be the first one to admit that sometimes it’s better to speak with different dialects. Depending on where you are at socially or regionally, it’s far superior than SWE. I have students that have great, wonderful intellects and they are geniuses in their own discourse community, but in the academic world they are struggling. Would I not be doing a disservice to them and myself f I ignored their errors? Listen up! Because this is the meat of my argument. “Neither camp appears ever to have considered whether maybe the way prescriptive SWE was traditionally taught had something to do with it’s inutility” (53).

Tommy: You mean pedagogy.

Foster: Exactly! And, students are not going to give a damn about grammar unless you can show them the importance of it. Why, look at the capitalistic exploits of PCE. The politicians and corporations are only using terms like “economically disadvantaged,” because it sounds better than poor. It’s a form of censorship, designed to serve the status quo (55). Then you have AE. These poor saps are more concerned with insecurities and intellectual resumes than they are with really exposing the truth. In fact, AE’s “real purpose is concealment and its real motivation fear” (56).

Tommy: Okay. Cool. That helps a lot. I’ll talk with the “brass” and we’ll let you know.