clarence thomas' dialect

Amy West medievalist at W-STS.COM
Tue Feb 26 15:23:07 UTC 2008


Thank you, Wilson! My gut reaction was that it's a BS excuse but I
haven't got the linguistic chops to support that. Rather I would
suggest taking a look at how many opinions he's *written*: very, very
few. If it were a matter of hesitation in the spoken language, I
think we would see a difference between the amount of speech in oral
arguments and the written opinions, but we don't. The opinion of many
of my legal friends is that both the lack of questions and written
opinions are due to him riding on Scalia's coattails. The deeper
reason is he's just unqualified for the position.

---Amy West

>Date:    Mon, 25 Feb 2008 16:12:46 -0500
>From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>Subject: Re: clarence thomas' dialect
>
>That claim is unreal, and I ain't going for it. Thomas speaks
>standardly far better than, i.e., Jesse Jackson or Saint Louis's own
>Cedric the Entertainer, who have no trouble opening their mouths. And
>mastering standard is no huge undertaking

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