Apple Tries to Copyright the Letter 'i'

Technology giant Apple Inc. has made bold move to try and copyright the lowercase letter ‘i’ as part of its plan to monopolise the sector.

The firm, responsible for immensely popular products such as the iPod and recently-released iPhone, have made a bid to gain exclusive rights to the orthographical form of the ninth letter of the Roman alphabet, hoping to charge royalties for anyone wishing to use what is purportedly ‘Apple’s trademark and therefore property’.

“It’s no secret,” said Ernie Keller, a spokesman for Apple Inc., “before we came along, you were all just using ‘I’ as the boring means to express the self or as the drab first person personal pronoun. We made it cool again; now people want to tag ‘I’ in front of everything and we’d like to think we’re responsible for this huge shift in popular culture. I’d even go as far as saying society, at large, owes us substantial royalties already.”

When asked about the potential obstacles that could be faced, the firm are surprisingly optimistic: “Look, does anyone actually own the alphabet? Maybe the Romans, but they’re long dead. So as far as we’re concerned it’s fair game, and we’re entitled to buy a part of it. Might even buy a few words from the dictionary while we’re at it… Beatrice, does anyone own the dictionary? No? Damn straight, they better not.”

The plans have caused a furore amongst the English-speaking world – though oddly enough, few countries outside this actually care – as it would mean huge changes for everyday life.

“How am I supposed to give my lessons to the kids if we have to pay royalties every time I say or write the letter ‘I’?” said Sue Gilbert, a teacher from Northampton. “I’d have to script my entire lessons beforehand and avoid words containing that letter in them. And fuck knows how a generation of kids are going to learn that I comes before E except after C. We might as well just hand them ASBOs already.”

Certain prescriptivist movements, also known as grammar Nazis, welcome the move. “Great news,” said Frank Weir, a more anal user of language. “People may start to speak properly once more. When one refuses to use that letter for common speech, as one demonstrates here throughout the current utterance, one sounds more elegant and markedly more twat-esque. That can never be bad, can it? Shit, one used it there. And there again. And again. Ah, crapbags.”