Joe Biden is now a candidate for Vice President. He does not keep it a secret that he used to stutter. This article, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20049251/, that was published last year tells about his life and mentions this about his stuttering:
"Joe Impedimenta. My classmates hung that nickname on me our first semester of high school when we were doing two periods of Latin a day. It was one of the first big words we learned. Impedimenta — the baggage that impedes one’s progress. So I was Joe Impedimenta. Or Dash.
A lot of people thought they called me Dash because of football. I was fast, and I scored my share of touchdowns. But the guys at an all-boys Catholic school usually didn’t give you nicknames to make you feel better about yourself. They didn’t call me Dash because of what I could do on the football field; they called me Dash because of what I could not do in the classroom. I talked like Morse code. Dot-dot-dot-dot-dash-dash-dash-dash. 'You gu-gu-gu-gu-guys sh-sh-sh-sh-shut up!' My impedimenta was a stutter."
