Joe Biden has been parodied mercilessly by his political rival, Donald Trump. But criticism was nothing new to Biden.
Biden stuttered from the age of four. Children called him “Bye Bye” because of the way he said his name. A telephone answering machine apologized for not understanding him. Bartenders would serve someone who could answer more quickly. He would blink his eyes or wiggle his toes to help him get through the stutter. In basketball camp, he was called “stutter boy.” He was turned down for a job in college because the store owner wanted his customers to feel comfortable. And it was not only the students. Biden once read aloud the story of Sir Walter Raleigh laying his cloak in the mud “suh-suh”–so the queen would not soil her shoes. His teacher made him repeat the word several times, saying, “Mr. Buh-Buh-Buh-Biden, what’s that word?” Biden left the classroom disgraced and walked home. His mother returned to confront the nun and said that if she did that again, she would “knock your bonnet off your head.” Even though he was the class president in high school, he was called “Dash” because he repeated the dash of the Morse Code.
Biden was not the only president with a speech defect. Zachary Taylor stammered as a child. His poor writing and stuttering suggest he may have been a natural left-hander forced to write with his right hand, although there is no record of this.
In the first grade, Gerald Ford found he wrote better with his left hand, but his teacher forced him to use his right hand. Jerry began stuttering; when his parents eventually stopped forcing him to write with his right hand, the stuttering vanished. He emerged with an unusual characteristic: he did things standing with his right hand (e.g., throwing a football) and sitting with his left (e.g., writing). Vilification of left-handedness dates back to ancient times (The Latin word for left is sinistra, and right is dextera.), but in the early 20th century, discrimination flourished with reports that left-handedness was more common among criminals and “lunatics.” Educators associated left-handedness with delayed mental development and recommended starting retraining as soon as it was noticed. They labeled children who continued to use their left hand as “stubborn” and “defiant.” Southpaws Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan were also “encouraged” to use their right hand.
Stuttering following left-right retraining is associated with misaligned signals between cerebral hemispheres. The most famous case was the Duke of York, the future King George VI, a left-hander forced to write with his right hand. He did not stammer until he was about 7. Abandoning retraining may have corrected his stutter, but his speech therapist did not recognize this. This relationship between left-hand retraining and the speech problem was not widely recognized until the 1920s, when a study found that only 1.6% of natural right-handers stuttered, but those forced to be right-handed had a rate of 20%.
Thomas Jefferson had no clearly diagnosed speech defect, but he certainly disliked speaking. In his 8 years in office, the only speeches he gave were his first 2 State of the Union addresses. Both were barely audible. Thereafter, he sent written State of the Union addresses to Congress.
The complete loss of teeth of Washington, Adams, and Jackson reduced their speech clarity. Without front teeth, air flows out differently and can produce a whistling or slushy vocalization for the “S” and “Z” sounds. The “TH” sounds require the tongue to go through the front teeth, and the “F” and “V” sounds require the upper front teeth to touch the lower lip. The “T,” “D,” “N,” and “L” sounds are produced by the tongue pressed just behind the upper teeth; “SH,” “CH,” “J,” and “ZH” sounds require airflow shaped by the tongue and front teeth. Edentulism results in a slurred, muffled, or imprecise voice. These defects could be corrected by false teeth, but none of those presidents liked their dentures, and Jackson and Adams often did not wear them.
It took Joe Biden years to overcome his stammer, and it was never complete. In 2020, Biden stuttered during a presidential primary debate. Fox News clipped the moments and put them together for an editorial about Joe Biden’s brain and mouth. He worked to counter even slight stuttering. His staff marked the teleprompter to help him control his vocal delivery. A speech pathologist noticed that Biden changed expressions in mid-sentence to avoid word blockage.
Although not considered speech defects, many presidents have had unconventional expressions, delivery styles, and vocabularies, which have been targets of lampoonery. In the end, the president’s oratory is likely to affect their reputation more than any classical speech defect.