When videos surfaced of a passenger being violently dragged off a United Airlines flight [1] to make room for airline employees, social media users were left stunned and outraged. But one widely followed user in particular, Merriam-Webster Dictionary [2], responded to the incident with a heavy-handed serving of shade, and it's pretty spot on.
The dictionary shared a post [3] detailing how searches for the term "volunteer" increased by a whopping 1,900 percent — this after the airline released an official statement explaining that it had asked for volunteers to deboard the plane prior to having police remove the passenger with force. When the sassy genius in charge of Merriam-Webster's Twitter account shared the article, it made sure to school United in the actual meaning of the word.
📈'Volunteer' means "someone who does something without being forced to do it." https://t.co/qNAcMyplhZ [5]
— Merriam-Webster (@MerriamWebster) April 11, 2017 [6]
Plenty of Twitter users took note of the dictionary's subtle sass and found it pretty darn epic.
@MerriamWebster [7] pic.twitter.com/xhP9Hlhlk9 [8]
— kat calvin (@KatCalvinLA) April 11, 2017 [9]
@MerriamWebster [10] So @united [11] , it is settled, they did not volunteer
— Duckhunter (@duckhunter9090) April 11, 2017 [12]
@MerriamWebster [13] pic.twitter.com/PI7c8piaAG [14]
— Lana Berry (@Lana) April 11, 2017 [15]
This umbrella-like shade is nothing new from the dictionary, as it's been calling out Donald Trump's administration [16] on social media all year. At least it's giving us a silver lining to look forward to when things head south.