Friday November 14, 2003

YOU TAKE MY MEANING? McDonald's, you may have heard, is mad because Merriam-Webster has put "McJobs" in their dictionary, defining it the way anyone who has ever heard the word automatically and instinctually defines it -- as shitty, dead-end service jobs.

Mickey D's minions have hit the press hard with its complaints ("a slap in the face to the 12 million men and women blah blah blah"), and of course WSJ's OpinionJournal, flagship of scumbag bosses worldwide, has risen to its defense. OJ claims that M-W "misdefines" McJobs, because people do move up from burger flipping to better work. No figures at all are offered in defense of this statement, but plenty of can-do corporate-speak is: "ladder into the American workplace," "Ditto for opportunity," etc.

There is something piquant, and more, about McDonald's and the Journal's attempt to explain to the many, many people who use the word McJobs appropriately that they should be using instead as a positive term -- like McDonald's does in its jobs-for-the-handicapped program! (Turn that frown upside down, fella! You're on a ladder to the American workplace!) Kinda makes you feel like you're committing a hate crime or something if you even say the word, now, doesn't it?

And if we don't respond well to this friendly persuasion, well, both McD and OJ remind us that the term McJobs is a licensed trademark -- hint hint, see lawyer.

Does anyone else see something slightly sinister in this attempt by a corporation and its goons to change the universally accepted meaning of a word? It's one thing to work your company's image, but it seems to me that the way to remove an unflattering connotation from your nomenclature is to improve your own performance in that regard.

Instead, Mickey D (hey, am I allowed to call them that? Is it, like, racist?) goes running around the English-speaking world yelling, " McJobs good! Say it! McJobs good!" I suppose we'll find out soon if they're rich enough to pull it off, and if we're feeble-minded enough to have it pulled off on us.

If so, I expect that in the near future, Maaco or Jiffy Lube will aggressively attempt to change the popular understanding of the term "rim job."