[26-27] On a train ride from New York to Connecticut last fall, my colleague Amanda Morris and her mother were having a conversation in American Sign Language (ASL). A man sitting near them saw them signing to each other and decided to join their conversation.
Like Amanda, he was a child of deaf adults who grew up using ASL at home and speaking English elsewhere. And he noticed a trait of Amanda’s: She signed like somebody who was much older than she was.
He began gently teasing her about it, sa...