Photograph taken in a store in Covent Garden, December 2005.

As one Apple tattoo recipient states, “I’m a Mac freak–I identify strongly with Apple and Mac computers–I got it done to convince myself I would always be true to Apple, not for religious or political reasons, but to convince myself that Macs are the way ahead”.

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A shibboleth is a kind of linguistic password: A way of speaking (a pronunciation, or the use of a particular expression) that identifies one as a member of an ‘in’ group. The purpose of a shibboleth is exclusionary as much as inclusionary: A person whose way of speaking violates a shibboleth is identified as an outsider and thereby excluded by the group. (This phenomenon is part of the “Judge a book by its cover” tendency apparently embedded in human cognition, and the use of language to distinguish social groups).

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