Scripts
Category: Communication

I am a big TV watcher. For the most part I find television very calming. However, lately I have been "Full Of Rage" when watching TV. What is bothering me now? It is the grammar that is used by the characters.

It is bad enough that my local Starbucks barista doesn't know the difference between 'me' and 'I'; now I have to watch TV shows where lawyers, doctors, and teachers are constantly making mistakes.

There is NO excuse for this. This is not a real-time decision. These are scripts! These scripts are written by authors who write the dialog for lawyers. They are then edited by other authors. After that, an actor reads and memorizes the lines. If the writers and the editors don't catch the mistake, the actor surely has to think, "hmmm. I'm playing a Harvard-educated lawyer. He would probably know a sixth-grade grammar rule."

After the writers, the editors, and the actors have missed the mistake, the scene is then performed in front of the director. Surely he will catch the mistake. Apparently he won't.

This leads me to believe that one of two things is happening. Either a) writers, editors, actors, and directors all can miss a rule I was taught in my pre-teens or b) someone has decided that these characters' speech would be more authentic with the mistakes. Personally, I don't know which is worse!

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