McDonald’s Miffed Over McJob

McDonald’s misunderstands the nature of dictionaries: that is, to observe the language as it is spoken and to document it. McDonald’s is up in arms over Merriam-Webster’s inclusion of ‘McJob‘ — a low-paying job that requires little skill and provides little opportunity for advancement — in its current edition and has, naturally, trumped up a completely groundless trademark claim to back this up. Trademarks don’t let you control how people speak — they only allow you to stop other commercial outfits from confusing your customers; certainly, they don’t give you the power to stop the reporting of the fact that English speakers use ‘McJob’ to describe a crappy job. Interesting to note that Merriam-Webster later caved in to the bully boys and pulled ‘McJobs’ from the list of examples of new words added to the dictionary