Sometimes it’s nice to know that there are people in other countries almost as looney as us. Here in the United States we specialize in legislating about science. If we don’t like the fact that we descended from apes, we try to solve the problem by passing a law that says that God did it.
In England, Darwin is safe for the moment, but the English language itself is under assault. McDonalds’ English Division is trying to force the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition of a word. In true Orwellian fashion, the corporation is looking to re-define a word into its opposite. You know, love is hate, war is peace, and a McJob is a high paying, exciting job with great prospects for advancement:
The Oxford English Dictionary currently describes a McJob as “an unstimulating low-paid job with few prospects”.
McDonald’s says this definition is now “out of date and insulting”, and claims a survey found that 69% of the UK population agree it needs updating.
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“The current definition is extremely insulting to the 67,000 people who work for us within the UK,” said McDonald’s senior vice president David Fairhurst.
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“It is time for us now to make a stand and get the Oxford English Dictionary to change the definition.”
Wouldn’t you love to know how they worded that poll? I actually heard about this some time ago, and assumed that McDonald’s would back off in the face of the initial derisory reaction. Apparently not.
Maybe McDonald’s is onto something here. Maybe we can solve a lot of our problems by changing the meaning of even more words by legislative fiat. Take a term that is offensive to an identifiable racial, religious or ethnic group. By simply redefining it to mean something else, we can spare the members of that group further pain. With the stroke of a legislative pen, we can decree that they should enjoy being called-well, pick your word. I’m not using them until the legislation is signed.
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