2. Topical Words: McJob
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The Associated Press reported last Saturday that Jim Cantalupo, the
Chairman and CEO of the fast-food firm McDonald's, had published an
open letter to Merriam-Webster about the recently-published 11th
edition of their Collegiate Dictionary. He complained about the
inclusion in that work of the word "McJob", and for defining it as
"low paying and dead-end work".
The affairs of dictionary makers are rarely controversial. But it
does occasionally happen that words, or their definitions, become
contentious. And this isn't the first time that "McJob" has been in
the headlines. A report in the Independent newspaper in Britain in
1997 claimed that the Oxford English Dictionary had been advised on
legal grounds not to include the word, though this never led to
anything and the term is in the online OED.
There are several problems with Mr Cantalupo's objections. Not the
least of them, as Merriam-Webster was quick to point out, is that
they don't define the word in those pejorative terms, but use the
phrase "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides
little opportunity for advancement". They are not alone: the Fourth
Edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, for example, says it is
"A job, usually in the retail or service sector, that is low paying,
often temporary, and offers minimal or no benefits or opportunity for
promotion". The online OED says: "An unstimulating, low-paid job with
few prospects, especially one created by the expansion of the service
sector". There's little that Mr Cantalupo can dispute here; however
unflattering it might appear to be to his organisation, that is
indeed what people mean by the term.
Critics might also argue that he should have complained five months
ago, when the Collegiate was first published. Actually, he's more
like 17 years too late. "McJob" appeared in the Washington Post in
1986, though it was the publication of Douglas Coupland's book
Generation X in 1991 that popularised it. In the decade since, it has
spread around most of the world.
The job of dictionaries, their editors argue, is to reflect the way
that the language is actually being used. Merriam-Webster rightly say
that the word is in wide general use (not just on the Internet, as Mr
Cantalupo asserts in his letter). They comment: "In editing the
Collegiate Dictionary, we bear in mind the guidance offered by Noah
Webster that the business of the lexicographer is to collect,
arrange, and define, as far as possible, all the words that belong to
a language, and leave the author to select from them at his pleasure
and according to his judgment'".
Mr Cantalupo also objects on the grounds that "McJOBS" is a
registered trademark of McDonald's used for the company's training
program for mentally and physically challenged people. McDonald's has
actually trademarked dozens of terms beginning in "Mc", such as
McDouble, McDrive, McExpress, McFamily, McFlurry, McHero, McKids,
McKroket, McMaco, McMenu, McMusic, McNifica, McNuggets, McOz,
McPlane, McPollo, McRib, McRoyal, McScholar, McSwing, and McWorld
(for the full list, see http://www.mcdonalds.com/legal/). This
plethora of terms, and the determined attempt on the part of the
company to associate "Mc" with McDonald's in the public mind, has
been all too successful.
A whole range of sarcastic or deprecatory "Mc" words has grown up.
Examples include "McPainting" (an unoriginal, paint-by-numbers type
of work), "McTheatre" (for hyped-up big-budget musicals that are low
on musical and artistic quality), and "McPolicy" (a political policy
which is mainly cosmetic). Another is "McMansion", which entered the
lexicon in Britain a decade ago as a derogatory term for modest new
homes, the architectural equivalent of the hamburger. Related to
these is "McDonaldisation", dating from about 1975, which the online
OED defines in a carefully non-derogatory way as "The spread of
influence of the type of efficient, standardized, corporate business
or culture regarded as epitomized by the McDonald's restaurant chain.
More widely: the spread of the influence of American culture". This
spread might result, some say, in a "McWorld".
One can't help feeling that McDonald's is on a loser, complaining
about just one example of a widespread trend, especially one that has
been stimulated by their own trademark practice. A famous libel case
brought by the firm in the UK in the 1990s resulted in the term
"McCensorship" being widely used. I'm watching for it to reappear.
from......
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