hm

The New Republic posts a CV from Adam Wheeler, who had bluffed his way into Harvard and now wanted an internship with TNR. TNR is scornful because Wheeler claims to speak French, Old English, Classical Armenian and Old Persian.

Er, the CV doesn't actually say this. What it says is:

LANGUAGES

French | Old English | Classical Armenian | Old Persian


I have no idea whether Wheeler actually had any kind of knowledge of the languages in question - he may have picked at least a couple where his knowledge was unlikely to be challenged by someone who actually did know them. To tell the truth, though, I frequently include Ancient Greek and Latin under languages on my CV; it has never occurred to me that this implied a claim to speak either.