Time – Tuesday, Jun. 05, 2007:
The fast-food giant is currently lobbying dictionary publishers to change the meaning of the word McJob — or remove it altogether — on the grounds that it denigrates the company’s employees.
First used some 20 years ago in the United States to describe low-paying, low-skill jobs that offered little prospect of advancement, the term McJob was popularized by the author Douglas Coupland in his 1991 slacker ode Generation X, which chronicled the efforts of a “lost” generation of twenty-somethings to escape their dead-end jobs in an attempt to find meaning in life.
In 2001, the term finally entered the Oxford English Dictionary, which defined it as “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service sector.” And it has remained there ever since. But not for much longer if McDonald’s gets its way.
At first the OED, Britain’s dictionary of record, explained that it merely recorded words according to their popular usage. A statement from a company official said it was not their role to redefine meanings assigned those words according to the preferences of interest groups.
Representatives of McDonald’s responded by arguing that the OED’s definition was “outdated” and “insulting.”
Finally, a ploy by McDonald’s PR reps in a sad determination to be viewed as the good guy; save the corporate image and those of the employees.
Considering they waited 6 years, how can we not see this as a very lazy attempt for publicity?
People make language, McDonalds. Lexicographers simply document it. Get over it!
The truth hurts sometimes!
But it’s always funny!
So what kind of precedent would this set, if they were successful? Would any group of people who found a word in the dictionary offensive then have grounds to have it removed?
Ridiculous.
Geez…get a freakin’ McLife already!
What a society full of pussies we’ve become (with no disrespect intended toward cats).
Remember, this is the same company that has so trademarked the name McDonalds that anyone else with that name cannot use it on any commercial enterprise.
what part of that description does not describe working at mcdonalds?
McDonald’s has always had trouble with semantics. They have been incorrectly calling their stuff food for years.
McDonalds can blow me… If you invade the national landscape with your low quality product, ugly up the neighborhood with your tacky signage, damage our health with your nasty artificial food, and offer crappy jobs at crappy wages, then you learn to deal with what we call you.
outdated and insulting…..just like McD’s food!!
Are they going to go after the word “McMansion” next? I don’t know if it has been added to the major dictionaries yet. But it is certainly common, understandable, and a brilliantly effective word to describe what many feel is a negative attribute.
After taking them this long to figure it out, now they will go after Apple for using the name MAC.
Oh wait they can’t. They are joined at the hip now with Apple thanks to Jobs being at Dizznee. They do that and they will never ever see another Dizznee toy campaign again!
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So Walmart is bad and so is McDonald’s. Anyone else you care to add to the list?
#13 – You know Mike… Businesses aren’t good just by virtue of being businesses. You guys on that side of the isle love to characterize criticism of major corporations as the sour grapes grumbling of misguided commie sympathizers and whackos… But we hold people to ethical standards, and some of us think we should hold corporations to them too.
WalMart and McDonalds are not good neighbors. They are not ethical players. They are not good to work for. They are not good to live near. They are bad neighbors.
The right seems to extol the virtue of these corps on the sole basis that businesses are supposed to make money and they make money therefore they are good.
Cocaine smugglers are in a business and they make money. In fact, they make a lot of money. Are they good?
Your anthromorphizing……busineses only have the qualities of the people that work there and all business should be held to an ethical standard because they of that very fact but at the same time a business does exist to make money if you want them to be more like a nonprofit your going to be disapointed. People buy a car and then want to bitch and moan because it doesn’t act like a horse are just going to be terminally disapointed.
oh another thing, Just like you rightfully said the right think because the business makes money it must be good. The left aren’t happy unless they can feel guilty about a perceived injustice and heh look at the big old target that is business.
#15 –
Corporation – Noun – An ingenious idea designed to create personal wealth without personal responsibility.
The right wants to drone on and on about personal responsibility, so I think they should take some once in a while.
#16,
The left aren’t happy unless they can feel guilty about a perceived injustice and heh look at the big old target that is business.
Comment by KVolk — 6/13/2007 @ 11:34 am
I don’t feel any guilt. More like outrage at what many of these corporation do and have done with little remorse. If McDonald’s doesn’t like the word McJob, they can either change their name or clean up their image some more and pay their employees a sufficient wage. Until then, … .
#18
Your outraged…good point that fits better than guilt….outraged about a perceived injustice definitely captures it better.
#19 – There’s that old conservative philosophy… “I got mine, screw you”