Cover next page > title: Seeing Language in Sign : The Work of William C. Stokoe author

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Page The hearing faculty at this meeting never said Boo and they never said Boo later on, either. I don't know what they made of it. President Elstad, afterwards in his office, told me that I would have to stop Bill's work, and I explained that such a thing would be absolutely impossible even to consider.
It maybe that I was pretty much the only one at Gallaudet who supported Bill. I don't know. The deaf people, ironically,
were all bitterly opposed to his work, or to what they considered his work to be. The hearing people generally didn't understand (certainly not from that faculty meeting) what the fuss was all about, were too busy to inquire, didn't like a fuss anyhow, and were jealous of Bill because he was known as my best friend. They didn't mind seeing him have a bit of trouble. One incident that Detmold remembers from the meeting offers a crucial insight into Stokoe's personality and helps explain why,
in the midst of such animosity, he continued his pioneering work "Bill had learned what he was to call ASL . . . from continual observation. I remember an incident from that famous faculty meeting. Alan Crammatte a Gallaudet professor was on the stage delivering a blistering attack on Bill, and Bill whispered tome 'Did you see what he did with his hand Down like this That means not yet.'"36
It was classic Bill Stokoe behavior. Ever the researcher, ever the student, ever the "stubborn Stokoe," in the midst of a concerted attack on his work he was fascinated by the way American Sign Language worked. His behavior was admirable, but it was infuriating, and it would earn him as many enemies along the way as his research did. In academia, as in the rest of this world,
we like to see people squirm every once in awhile. Not only didn't Stokoe squirm, he seemed utterly oblivious to the impact of his work on others. He maintained a dignity and a distance which were, under the circumstances, utterly incredible. As Lou Fant recalls,
As far as I could tell, it didn't faze him. He acted just like he always had. You'd never have known a storm of protest and resentment was swirling around him. You'd never have known anything was wrong by talking to or watching Bill. He

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