Non native speaker?

[James A. Landau]

In a message dated 10/24/02 10:12:25 AM Eastern Daylight Time,
t.paikeday at SYMPATICO.CA writes:

> Last  night NBC Nightly News reported that it had been determined that the
>  sniper is a "native speaker" of English, probably a Caucasian, with an
>  accent suspected to be Hispanic. The above judgement seems to have been
>  based on the sniper's written rather than spoken English

Huh?  Someone speaking in AAVE is probably African-American, but unless he
spoke something exotic like "Hillbilly" I cannot imagine what criteria would
give away that he were Caucasian.  A Hispanic accent would not do (and do you
classify Hispanics as Caucasians?  Most race survey questionnaires do not) as
there are many black Hispanics, particularly in the Caribbean.

And just how does one display a "suspected" Heespanic accent een writing
rather than een espeaking?

I will grant that your Internet Service Provider gives away that it is NOT
Hispanic by mispelling "simpa/tico".

(And speaking of NBC Nightly News, does Peter Jennings still bother to carry
his green card?)

        - Jim Landau