From today’s Romensko:
High school journalists in Stillwater, MN investigated a man pretending to be teenage member of British royalty who wanted to enroll at their school. They discovered that “Caspian James Crichton-Stuart IV, the Fifth Duke of Cleveland” was actually Joshua Gardner, a 22-year-old convicted sex offender from Austin, MN. “Why would a member of the royal family come to Minnesota to go to school?” asks a school newspaper staffer. When quizzed last month by student journalists, “his accent started to falter, and he became agitated,” says a student editor.
Wow. Just like Scooby Doo.
Still, all it would have taken was just one English person to have heard his name and that would have been “case solved”. For Americans reading this, claiming to be called “Caspian James Crichton-Stuart IV, the Fifth Duke of Cleveland” is to being English as claiming to be called “Brittany Mary-Lou Faffermeir-Kerry from Springfield, Hawaii” is to being American.
By the way, if he’d actually described himself as a “British duke” or having a “British accent” that would have given the game away even quicker: we only talk about English, Irish, Scottish or Welsh accents here and only ever Scottish or English dukes. Only Americans talk about British accents or dukes. Just some advice if you’re ever planning on passing yourself off as someone British…
PS Did you see what I did there?