McJob Worries McDonald's

McDonald's has renewed its protests of the dictionary definition for McJob, meaning unqualified low wage work that lacks career prospects. This time McDonald's intends to eliminate such negativism from British dictionaries. According to language specialists, the word was used for the first time in a U.S. journal, The Washington Post, about 20 years ago.

In Romanian, cosmetic manufacturers tried and partly succeeded in eliminating the word rimel because it came from the brand name of a manufacturer - Rimmel. Instead, women magazines use the term "mascara", taken from a foreign word, which is defined in the Romanian dictionary - DEx - as "clown", "jester", "human pet", "good for nothing", "jerk".

McDonald's may consume forests of paper in its corporate manuals to explain the prospects of a stellar career. Corporate trainers may speak for hours on the upward mobility of a McJob in classes. Still, the world understands something else, and that is why that something else is in the dictionary, despite McDonald's protests.

• Read more details at the Financial Times
• BBC: McDonald's Seeks McJob Rewrite