Dearest mother, linguists have scoured my writings and are on to me -- Capt. Andrew Luck

People desperately want the person behind Capt. Andrew Luck's X account to be the real Andrew Luck, the book club aficionado, board game-playing NFL quarterback nerd with an architectural degree from Stanford, who has the ingenuity to craft witty messages to his mother from the battlefields of the Civil War.

In a perfect social media world, it would be Luck who's been sitting at a keyboard since 2015, typing up brilliant, wistful writings, which have garnered a fierce 450,000 followers. But, deep down, we know it's not him. The real Luck was still carrying a flip phone when Capt. Andrew Luck launched in December 2015.

As the account went viral, gaining steam as Capt. Andrew Luck used nostalgic phrases like "squirrel oil" and "peppered chipmunk feet," people started making other guesses about who was behind this Civil War Twitter phenom.

Maybe it was an Indianapolis Colts teammate. Maybe it was a random, beer-drunken football fan. Maybe it was one of Luck's friends from Stanford. Others surmised it must be a Civil War historian, someone like Ken Burns, a documentary filmmaker best known for his series, "The Civil War."

Earlier this month, after the real Andrew Luck appeared on Thursday Night Football dressed as a Civil War captain, it prompted Capt. Andrew Luck to come out of his 4-month X hiatus and make a hilarious post. And people, once again, started making guesses about the captain's identity.

IndyStar had enough with the guessing and turned to two renowned linguists to scour Capt. Andrew Luck's X account, read his direct messages, give their thoughts and have a little fun. Their findings were fascinating.

For one, Capt. Andrew Luck isn't as clever as he thinks he is, at least when it comes to representing the Civil War era, said Dr. Michael Adams, professor of English at Indiana University, who specializes in the history, theory and practice of lexicography.

"Capt. Andrew Luck isn't fussing over details. I think people with a little historical knowledge of the time would be fussier and imitate things more accurately," Adams said. "I'm not complaining about Capt. Andrew Luck's writings.

"I'm just saying Capt. Andrew Luck isn't who he thinks he is."

Likely a white male working in a technical field

Based on the careful thought put into each post, the structure and consistency of the letters, Dr. Kirk Hazen suspects the person most likely works in a technical field, such as engineering or programming.

"The (letters) are crafted and not thrown out there," said Hazen, professor of linguistics at West Virginia University. Hazen also guesses the person is a white male, based more on social factors than language factors.

"The adoring reverence for that Civil War documentary and the romanticization of that era is a hint in this direction," Hazen said, "and it suggests an easy sense of unexamined privilege."

Both Hazen and Adams agree the person behind the account has seen Ken Burns' series, "The Civil War," which was first broadcast on PBS 30 years ago. But both also agree the person is not a historian or an academic in any liberal arts field.

The person behind Capt. Andrew Luck, who has repeatedly declined to reveal their identity, told IndyStar in 2019 that the idea for the account came after seeing a gallery of memes on a sports site, showing pro athletes in historical periods of time. One of those was Andrew Luck in the Civil War.

"Being a fan of his and of history, I thought it may be funny to send 'letters' to his mother from the 'battlefield,'" the person wrote. "I began sending them to friends via texts, until one suggested I start a Twitter account for the character. So I did."

When asked how he came up with the brilliant writing, the person responded, "Honestly, off the top of my head."

That doesn't surprise Adams. There are, after all, some blatant errors in the historical language Capt. Andrew Luck uses.

"Ken Burns, or somebody like that, would be more thoughtful about the imitation of mid-19th century American speech," Adams said. "Anybody who is an official historian, not just some football fan who is imitating the history, would not craft the tweets this way."

A Knockoff Historian

Adams had never heard of Capt. Andrew Luck when IndyStar came calling. "It was completely new to me, but that is not surprising," he said. Adams is not a football fanatic, and neither is he an X user. "I look at it for research purposes only."

So, we asked him to do a little research for us.

"There are some really big tells this is not a historian," Adams said. "It's just in the selection of a few words," including one example he calls "glaring."

"Dearest mother — I dare say the tide has turned. The unit secured another victory in the Land of Oak. We found light in an otherwise Black Hole. What is more, Sgt. Vinatieri proved himself the greatest sniper among all those who battle. My smile is wide. I love you. — Andrew"

There are two historical language mistakes in this post, says Adams. First, the mention of a "Black Hole." The scientific phenomena, the black hole, didn't arise until 1964. The second is the use of the word sniper.

"This didn't become an American word until 1900. It's not impossible that someone would have known the word 'sniper' during the Civil War," said Adams. "But not Capt. Andrew Luck. It's a little fishy."

"Dearest mother — The Minnesota tundra is harsh. I write you now from inside a deer carcass to keep warm. I must rest for battle. — Andrew"

Using the word "tundra" as a generic description for the weather didn't come into the American language until the 20th century, Adams said.

"During the Civil War, nobody used that word as anything other than the tundra in arctic Russia, not as a landscape," he said. "When I saw 'tundra,' I thought, 'Ahhhh this is not a historian. This is just a regular guy."

To be sure, Adams went to a digital corpus of American language. There were just two instances of the word "tundra" being used in the 1840s and 1850s.

"That was the finest tooth comb you could run through in language, and it was barely visible. I checked it as suspicious," Adams said. "It was not something a Civil War captain would say unless he happened to be a student of Russia whose mother was a student of Russia."

The next historical mistake Capt. Andrew Luck makes is one Adams calls "kind of a delightful slip."

"Dearest mother — I write with exuberance. Today, for the first time after many sunrises, I fired my sidearm in full view of onlookers. It was a sight, I admit. Some were startled. The unit has a grueling campaign that inches closer daily. I shall be ready. I love you. — Andrew"

From 1860 to 1865, sidearm wasn't used in reference to pistols or revolvers. Sidearm, up until that point in military history, had meant weapons like swords and sabers, things soldiers carried at their side.

"I see what he's doing, and it's clever," Adams said, "but it's not accurate." Neither is the captain finding himself flummoxed.

"Dearest mother — My disappointment is immeasurable. Our unit fell to the Jungle Cat men. We simply were unable to gain the necessary ground to fortify a victory. I find myself flummoxed by the outcome of the final maneuver of the battle. We must learn and move onward. — Andrew"

There is one instance of the word "flummoxed" recorded at the time of the Civil War, but it doesn't reappear in American English until the 1930s, Adams said.

"It sounds like an old-fashioned word, but it's not as old-fashioned as you might think," he said. Just another error on the part of the captain.

Part history, part comedy

Hazen isn't so sure that Capt. Andrew Luck isn't doing some of this on purpose, just to keep people guessing and to keep his 21st century audience.

"There is no attempt to fit the spelling to the kinds of variation you see in Civil War letters," Hazen said. "As a modern reader, I actually appreciate that."

Hazen admits, he is impressed with Capt. Andrew Luck. "The letters do fit the genre, at least the media presented genre of older war letters," he said. "I can almost hear Shelby Foote's voice in some of these lines, the ones that are not clearly a reference to another football team."

That's a pretty big compliment to the captain's X account. Foote was an American writer^, best known for penning "The Civil War: A Narrative," a three-volume history of the Civil War.

Capt. Andrew Luck has definitely found a niche -- part history, part comedy, part sentimental -- and it speaks to the modern audience of X, which makes all of us stop and ponder. Capt. Andrew Luck may not be as clever as he thinks he is.

Or, maybe, just maybe, he's smarter than any of us realize.

Follow IndyStar sports reporter Dana Benbow on X: @DanaBenbow. Reach her via email: dbenbow@indystar.com.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Who is Capt. Andrew Luck? We asked linguists to analyze his X posts