One wrong letter can change an entire sentence. President Trump learned that the hard way on Thursday morning, after tweeting that he meets with foreign governments all the time, including the “Prince of Whales,” rather than the Prince of Wales, a.k.a. Prince Charles.
The typo came as the president was defending his widely criticized comments to ABC’s George Stephanopoulos from earlier this week, where he said “there isn’t anything wrong with listening” to foreign governments offering information on his potential 2020 election rivals.
The “Whales” gaffe was quickly deleted and replaced with a corrected tweet; you can check out the original tweet below.
Explaining the joke is never fun, but for those unfamiliar with British politics, the Prince of Wales is Prince Charles, the oldest son of Queen Elizabeth II and next in line to the throne. (Trump pointed to the recent White House visit from the British Royal Family in his tweet defending his comments to Stephanopoulos.) And for those unfamiliar with Great Britain in general, Wales is a small country connected to the west coast of England and part of the United Kingdom. Whereas a whale is a large marine animal.
Still, even with the corrected tweet, it was already too late to stop many Twitter users from making marine life jokes at the president’s expense.
DOES THE PRINCE OF WHALES RULE OVER DOLPHINS TOO? pic.twitter.com/hgbI10VrSs
— The Volatile Mermaid (@OhNoSheTwitnt) June 13, 2019
1) Prince of Wales
2) Prince of Whales
3) Prince of Wails pic.twitter.com/fFN0Sukk5R— Nicholas Grossman (@NGrossman81) June 13, 2019
https://twitter.com/hazelshearing/status/1139158881387651072
https://twitter.com/MyraAdam5/status/1139168686546259969
Big Prince of Whales fan pic.twitter.com/51emJ8ODEA
— General Boles (@GeneralBoles) June 13, 2019
There’s a lot more where that came from. If you open Twitter on Thursday morning, you’ll probably see a wave of whales jokes.