And it isn't even April 1...

The source isn't The Onion, today isn't April Fool's Day. So, help me out here--how can these people POSSIBLY be serious about this...

Business chiefs and lawmakers criticised the use of the term McJob Thursday as fast food chain McDonald's launched a campaign to get an influential dictionary to change its definition.

Figures including Sir Digby Jones, former head of the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) and David Frost, director-general of the British Chamber of commerce, complained that the term was "insulting" and "out of touch".

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), seen as the definitive guide to the English language, describes a McJob as "an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp. one created by the expansion of the service sector."

Okay, I fully understand the business industry folks not liking that definition, but the proposed change is going to make people laugh out loud.

But Jones, Frost and 13 others said in a letter to the Financial Times that the dictionary should change this "to reflect a job that is stimulating, rewarding and offers genuine opportunities for career progression."

Their letter coincided with a push by McDonald's to get the OED to change the definition -- it is launching Thursday a public petition in British restaurants and on the Internet.

In recent days I've heard Al Gore speaking on The Daily Show and elsewhere, as part of his promotional tour for his new book The Assault on Reason. It's pretty distressing to realize how much financial interests have morphed the "news" into a different sort of creature entirely. That's bad enough. But, the freaking dictionary?

The letter has to be, at least to some extent, tongue-in-cheek. Jones, Frost et. al. can't seriously expect the OED to change a definition to the opposite of its everyday usage. If society ever sinks to that level, the chimps may want to deny that they're related to us.

Haloscan comment thread