Word: mcdonaldization
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...eating, asking thousands of Tokyo-area parents to photograph the meals they serve their families over the course of a week. The results are surprising to anyone who believes Japan is a paragon of healthy eating. Flipping through a thick binder, she shows photos of dinner tables topped with McDonald's Happy Meals, skimpy take-out rice balls, a microwavable hamburger steak - the same kind of fast food on which a harried Western family might survive. "The gap between what we think the Japanese eat and what they really eat is enormous," says Iwamura, a lead marketer for the Tokyo...
...McDonald's is hardly the first interest group to challenge the OED's chronicling of unflattering slang. Last year, Britain's Potato Council complained that the definition of couch potato implied that the nutritious tuber was inherently unhealthy, thus driving down business. Instead, the Council campaigned for the term to be replaced by couch slouch, even staging protests outside the OED's Oxford headquarters - but to no avail...
...This time, however, could be different - not least because of the size of McDonald's war chest and its lobbying power. The campaign has already the garnered the support of heavyweight business figures such as Chambers of Commerce Director General David Frost. More impressively, Conservative party Member of Parliament Clive Betts last week introduced a motion into Britain's parliament condemning the pejorative use of McJob. Betts believes the OED should redefine the term: "It would be helpful if the dictionary took the lead on this. It's not a proper and true reflection of the service industry today...
...McDonald's "word war" is hardly confined to the corridors of power. Last Friday morning in Birmingham, TIME found a McDonald's publicity team on the street, beneath an enormous TV screen atop a parked van beaming images of bright, happy McDonald's staff, urging passers-by to sign a petition to change the definition of McJob...
...Adds Douglas Wright, a local McDonald's franchisee, "We're trying to reenergize the definition [and] we're backed by the chamber of commerce. The support has been phenomenal...