McOwn Goal by those Burger People

by - 17:16 on 19 September 2007

Normally I don’t notice goings on when they relate to the world of burgers but I’m told there is an on-line petition started by those burger sellers from the Clan Donald, in order to have the word ‘Mcjob’ banned and removed from dictionaries.

Long ago, I worked for a dictionary publisher (Chambers Dictionaries). In fact, if it wasn’t for the words which I pilfered from them while working there I would never have become a copywriter. I started in a small way, taking home the occasional overlooked monosyllable. Then I got bolder and eventually was boldly walking out right under the noses of security with huge and unwieldy polysyllabic constructions. I was never challenged.

Anyway, don’t these fast-food people know that a dictionary reflects usage? You look it up to find out how a word is used. To try to change a word’s meaning because you happen not to like it or agree with how it is used is just semantic Fascism.

However, if you are indignant about the definition of Mcjob in dictionaries, and have been daft enough to sign the petition, then why stop with just wanting that word wiped out in a tourism industry context? Here are a few more words and phrases relating to Scotland and tourism that you might also want to consider banning.

For example, anyone who is concerned with promoting the quality of Scottish cuisine might wish to outlaw any use of the phrase ‘deep-fried Mars Bar’, commonly used by the media as a symbol of what we eat, apparently, and an obvious slight to the standards of home cuisine. Personally, I’ve never seen one. Or if you are sensitive about religious matters, then you might also want to stop using ‘mecca’ in a golfing context – usually as in ‘St Andrews is a mecca for golfers’. Personally, I’m waiting to see ‘Mecca is a mecca for pilgrims’ in print soon. (Presumably they use the Korran ferry. Oh stop it.)

What else? Perhaps a wee campaign to tone down the over-use of the misleading word ‘wilderness’ when applied to anywhere north or west of Inverness might be a good thing. After all, just about everywhere in the north is really more than a couple of hours’ drive from a 24-hour Tesco, the very apex of civilisation in 21st century Scotland. Oh, and can we please stop using the word ‘tropical’ to describe Inverewe Gardens. It’s in the north of Scotland, for goodness sake. It should be ‘cool temperate’, apparently. The place is special because it gets so little frost - not because you can ripen bananas there. www.nts.org.uk/Property/36/

 

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