McDonald ’s tells Webster, “Take this McJob and shove it”

[Dennis Baron]

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McDonald’s tells Webster, “Take this McJob and shove it”

David Fairhurst, a McDonald’s vice president, has taken up the  
crusade started by the fast-food giant’s late CEO Jim Cantalupo, to  
get dictionaries to revise their definition of McJob.

The first print reference to McJob appears in the Washington Post in  
1986.  Five years later Douglas Coupland memorialized the word in  
Generation X as, “A low-pay, low-prestige, low-dignity, low benefit,  
no-future job in the service sector.”   Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate  
Dictionary defines McJobs as low-paying, requiring little skill, and  
providing little opportunity for advancement.  The American Heritage  
Dictionary of the English Language echoes this definition, and the  
Oxford English Dictionary includes “unstimulating” in the mix of  
descriptors referring to dead-end jobs in the “service sector.”

But McDonald’s wants to have it their way, redefining McJob as one  
“that is stimulating, rewarding … and offers skills that last a  
lifetime.”

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Dennis Baron
Professor of English and Linguistics
Department of English
University of Illinois
608 S. Wright St.
Urbana, IL 61801

office: 217-244-0568
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