Mar

21

McStupid.

Posted by Christopher Waldrop

March 21, 2007 |

If I say “McJob”, you probably know I’m talking about a low-paying, dead-end job that doesn’t require any special skills or decision-making capability, a cookie-cutter job that many of us got our start doing but that no one wants to stay in for life. And yet the McDonald’s corporation wants the word removed from, of all places, the Oxford English Dictionary.

Four years ago they tried to get it removed from the Merriam Webster Dictionary and failed. Claiming the word is “demeaning” to its workers, company spokesman Walt Riker said, “”Dictionaries are supposed to be paragons of accuracy.” Dictionaries are actually supposed to be repositories and reference works for all words. To quote the venerable Oxford English Dictionary itself, the definition of “dictionary” is, “A book dealing with the individual words of a language (or certain specified classes of them), so as to set forth their orthography, pronunciation, signification, and use, their synonyms, derivation, and history, or at least some of these facts.”

This would explain the Oxford English Dictionary’s inclusion of, among other things, “tighty-whities”, “d’oh!”, and “bootylicious”.

The Oxford English Dictionary’s definition of McJob, “An unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects” does sound pretty harsh, but is it really demeaning, or even inaccurate? It doesn’t say anything about the workers. And if McDonald’s really has a problem with the word’s definition, why aren’t they trying to change it instead of removing the word entirely?

Here’s another thing to chew on: the first recorded use in print of the term McJob is from the August 24, 1986 issue of The Washington Post. In the article “McJobs Are Bad For Kids”, Amitai Etzioni explains, “While it is true that these places provide income, work, and even some training to such youngsters, they also tend to perpetuate their disadvantaged status. They provide no career ladders and few marketable skills, and they undermine school attendance and involvement.”

No wonder McDonald’s wants the definition deleted.

Language is a framework for thought. A concept can’t be shared if there is no language for it. It sounds like McDonald’s is really trying to change the way we think about their corporation built on unstimulating, low-paid jobs with few prospects. And, to borrow a line of the Queen’s English, we are not amused.


Comments

5 Comments so far

  1. James on March 21, 2007 2:21 pm

    Great point, they need to change the job instead of the meaning. I mean it is a culturism. How can you erase a culturism?

  2. John on March 21, 2007 2:25 pm

    Culturism is not a word. Didn’t McD’s change the job to offer management training, or college opportunities or something? I would think this is a step up form the “stars” on your name badge system of recognition. By the way does anyone else laugh when they see Generals on TV with stars on their shirts and think of McDonalds?

  3. Christopher Waldrop on March 21, 2007 3:38 pm

    “Culturism” is a word, although it doesn’t mean what James thinks it means. It means “systematic devotion to culture”. There is a word for words like “McJob”, but I’ll be derned if I can remember what it is.

  4. Angel on March 23, 2007 8:56 pm

    Well, if there is a word for “made up words”, I couldn’t find it. There seems to be a number of sites with lists of them, however. Jasper Fforde, one of new favorite authors, makes it a point to make up words in his books. Lots of fun!

  5. John on March 27, 2007 9:52 am

    If you go to www.whitehouse.gov you will find lots of made up words.

Name (required)

Email (required)

Website

Speak your mind

<< Post Navigation >>

« « Animal Attraction. | A Fungus Among Us. » »