-Brad
joanna bujes wrote:
>
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: [PEN-L] McJob
> Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2003 09:58:45 -0800
> From: Dan Scanlan <dscanlan at ORO.NET>
> Reply-To: PEN-L list <PEN-L at SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU>
> To: PEN-L at SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
>
> 2. Topical Words: McJob
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> 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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