This article is more than 1 year old

Apple fanbois are officially sheeple. Yes, you heard. Deal with it

Offended? Go hassle Merriam-Webster, not us

Apple fanbois are officially sheeple. So says American dictionary Merriam-Webster.

The American lexicologists added the term of endearment to their tome yesterday, a mere 72 years after its first recorded use in the English language.

Helpfully, and entirely non-inflammatorily, Merriam-Webster's people gave two examples of "sheeple" being used in a sentence. The first was a fairly neutral example of a farmer being rude to his neighbours. The second... well, here it is for your amusement/enragement (delete as appropriate):

Apple's debuted a battery case for the juice-sucking iPhone – an ungainly lumpy case the sheeple will happily shell out $99 for.

A quick bit of (insert your adjectival search engine of choice)-ing reveals this neat little phrase was used by one Doug Criss of CNN in 2015.

Criss himself hadn't said anything on Twitter about being cited by the dictionary and we're not bothered enough to ring him up and ask him what he thinks. It's nearly time for elevenses, after all.

Sheeple was added to the only true dictionary, the Oxford English Dictionary, years ago – it was their word of the day on 6 January 2013. Regardless, it's nice to see our colonial cousins keeping up with the mother tongue. ®

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