Many moons ago I popped my head into Stan Starosta’s office and asked him if he had a few min­utes to spare. He was obviously busy doing whatever it is linguists do, but not being very obser­vant in such matters I interrupted him anyway.

My visit, which turned out to be a lengthy one, was engendered by something I heard Stan say, or I had read, which piqued my interest in terms of its application to second language pedagogy. The context was the hey day of Chomskian linguistics, and Stan’s take on the structure of lan­guage differed significantly from what Brother Noam was advocating at the time. I wondered if Stan’s approach might prove useful to ESL teachers in their efforts to teach the structure of English to their changes.

Stan carefully, patiently, and at great length discussed the possibiolities with me as if it were the most important matter he had on the day’s agenda. He could have elected to give me the brush off, which I would have understood and accepted, but instead, he devoted a significant amount of time to discuss this matter in depth with me, and in so doing, provided a measure of his scholarly and gentlemanly being, which reflected greatly on his character.

Long since forgotten are the particulars of our discussion. What has not been forgotten, over the many years, was the kindness and generosity he accorded me in sharing his ideas with me.

Ted Plaister