Monday, June 11, 2007

McDonalds Lobbies The Dictionary

I have to imagine that McDonalds has a huge PR firm representing them in order to take on Webster's Dictionary. It offends them that they pay people so little that "McJob" has a definition in the hundreds of thousands of words in print with a meaning, "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement." That sounds about right to me, but not to the paid shills at America's #1 artery choker fast food establishment.

From The Consumerist:

Webster's dictionary defines McJob as, "a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement," a definition that McDonalds' lobbyists are working overtime to overturn.
The company is leading a "word battle" on behalf of the wider service sector. The object, according to David Fairhurst, a senior vice-president of McDonald's, is to change the definition of McJob to "reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding ... and offers skills that last a lifetime."
The Oxford English Dictionary, which specifically notes that McJobs are "unstimulating," claims that they track the popular usage of words, and do not respond to pressure from interest groups.

McDonalds might want to think again about how to spend that PR money. They certainly haven't been able to convince me to go there in a long, long time.