Ed Whelan writes:
To answer Whelan’s question: These malapropisms would only be noteworthy and revealing if they were spoken by a certain country bumpkin Republican governor of Alaska. When a wise Latina accidentally says “vagrancies of … the moment” instead of “vagaries of … the moment” during the oral argument of the Ricci case, we’re supposed to ignore the slip-up, as the Wall Street Journal did, but make sure to inform readers that they should be impressed by the fact that “The Catholic-school-educated judge clearly knew the Latin plural of ‘forum.'” But enough about her errors of diction. I wouldn’t want to get Sotomayor’s reputation for writing pieces “that didn’t distinguish between substantive and trivial points, with petty editing suggestions–fixing typos and the like–rather than focusing on the core analytical issues.” Update: Allahpundit has the video and a choice Sotomayor quote: “each time I see a split infinitive, an inconsistent tense structure or the unnecessary use of the passive voice, I blister.”
