McWord

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A McWord is a word containing the prefix Mc-, derived from the first syllable of the name of the McDonald's restaurant chain. Words of this nature are either official marketing terms of the chain (such as McNugget ), or are neologisms designed to evoke pejorative associations with the restaurant chain or fast food in general, often for qualities of cheapness, inauthenticity, or the speed and ease of manufacture. They are also used in non-consumerism contexts as a pejorative for heavily commercialized or globalized things and concepts.

Contents

Examples

Official McDonald's products and branding concepts

A screenshot of the video gaming website IGN under "McIGN" branding circa September 2003 McIGN.jpg
A screenshot of the video gaming website IGN under "McIGN" branding circa September 2003

See also

Related Research Articles

McDonald's Corporation v Steel & Morris[1997] EWHC 366 (QB), known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris over a factsheet critical of the company. Each of two hearings in English courts found some of the leaflet's contested claims to be libellous and others to be true.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hamburger</span> Food consisting of a beef patty between rounded buns

A hamburger or simply burger is a food consisting of fillings—usually a patty of ground meat, typically beef—placed inside a sliced bun or bread roll. Hamburgers are often served with cheese, lettuce, tomato, onion, pickles, bacon, or chilis; condiments such as ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, relish, or a "special sauce", often a variation of Thousand Island dressing; and are frequently placed on sesame seed buns. A hamburger patty topped with cheese is called a cheeseburger.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fast-food restaurant</span> Type of restaurant

A fast-food restaurant, also known as a quick-service restaurant (QSR) within the industry, is a specific type of restaurant that serves fast-food cuisine and has minimal table service. The food served in fast-food restaurants is typically part of a "meat-sweet diet", offered from a limited menu, cooked in bulk in advance and kept hot, finished and packaged to order, and usually available for take away, though seating may be provided. Fast-food restaurants are typically part of a restaurant chain or franchise operation that provides standardized ingredients and/or partially prepared foods and supplies to each restaurant through controlled supply channels. The term "fast food" was recognized in a dictionary by Merriam–Webster in 1951.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McDonaldland</span> Fast food-themed media franchise and fictional world

McDonaldland is a McDonald's media franchise and the fictional fantasy world inhabited by Ronald McDonald and his friends. Starting with the creation of Ronald McDonald in 1963, it is primarily developed and published by McDonald's. Initial attempts to expand the McDonaldland universe by marketing agency Needham, Harper & Steers were seemingly retconned due to legal issues, but ongoing aspects were expanded in McDonald's projects in collaboration with Data East, Virgin Interactive, Treasure, SEGA, and Klasky Csupo.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McJob</span> Pejorative work-related slang

"McJob" is a slang term for a low-paying, low-prestige dead-end job that requires few skills and offers very little chance of advancement. The term "McJob" comes from the name of the fast-food restaurant McDonald's, but is used to describe any low-status job – regardless of employer – where little training is required, staff turnover is high, and workers' activities are tightly regulated by managers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fast food</span> Food prepared and served in a small amount of time

Fast food is a type of mass-produced food designed for commercial resale, with a strong priority placed on speed of service. It is a commercial term, limited to food sold in a restaurant or store with frozen, preheated or precooked ingredients and served in packaging for take-out/takeaway. Fast food was created as a commercial strategy to accommodate large numbers of busy commuters, travelers and wage workers. In 2018, the fast food industry was worth an estimated $570 billion globally.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Menu</span> Listing of available food options being sold

In a restaurant, the menu is a list of food and beverages offered to customers and the prices. A menu may be à la carte – which presents a list of options from which customers choose – or table d'hôte, in which case a pre-established sequence of courses is offered. Menus may be printed on paper sheets provided to the diners, put on a large poster or display board inside the establishment, displayed outside the restaurant, or put on a digital screen. Since the late 1990s, some restaurants have put their menus online.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chicken McNuggets</span> Chicken nuggets sold by McDonalds

Chicken McNuggets are a type of chicken nuggets sold by the international fast food restaurant chain McDonald's. They consist of small pieces of reconstituted boneless chicken meat that have been battered and deep fried. Chicken McNuggets were conceived by Keystone Foods in the late 1970s and introduced in select markets in 1981. The nuggets were made available worldwide by 1983 after correcting a supply issue. The formula was changed in 2016 to remove artificial preservatives and improve the nutritional value.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Drive-through</span> Service that motorists can use from their vehicle (without parking)

A drive-through or drive-thru, is a type of take-out service provided by a business that allows customers to purchase products without leaving their cars. The format was pioneered in the United States in the 1930s, and has since spread to other countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Burger King</span> Mascot of American food chain Burger King

The Burger King is a king character used as the primary mascot for the fast-food restaurant chain of the same name. The first iteration of the Burger King was part of a sign at the first Burger King restaurant in Miami, Florida, in 1955. Later signs showed the King sitting on a "burger throne" as well as atop the BK sign while holding a beverage. In the early 1970s, Burger King started using a small and animated version of the King in its children's advertising, voiced by Allen Swift. In 1976, the original animated King was replaced by the "Marvelous Magical Burger King" which was a red-bearded and Tudor-era king who ruled the Burger King Kingdom and performed magic tricks that were mostly sleight-of-hand but sometimes relied on camera tricks or involved his "Magic Ring" which could summon copious amounts of food. The Burger King Kingdom advertisements were discontinued in the late 1980s in favor of the BK Kids Club Gang and other advertising programs.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McDonald's</span> American fast food restaurant corporation

McDonald's Corporation is an American multinational fast food chain, founded in 1940 as a restaurant operated by Richard and Maurice McDonald, in San Bernardino, California, United States. They rechristened their business as a hamburger stand, and later turned the company into a franchise, with the Golden Arches logo being introduced in 1953 at a location in Phoenix, Arizona. In 1955, Ray Kroc, a businessman, joined the company as a franchise agent and in 1961 bought out the McDonald brothers. Previously headquartered in Oak Brook, Illinois, it moved to nearby Chicago in June 2018. McDonald's is also a real estate company through its ownership of around 70% of restaurant buildings and 45% of the underlying land.

McDonald's has been involved in a number of lawsuits and other legal cases in the course of the fast food chain's 70-year history. Many of these have involved trademark issues, but McDonald's has also launched a defamation suit which has been described as "the biggest corporate PR disaster in history".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Criticism of McDonald's</span>

The American restaurant chain McDonald's has been criticised for numerous aspects of its business, including the health effects of its products, its treatment of employees, the environmental impact of its operations, and other business practices.

Restaurants fall into several industry classifications, based upon menu style, preparation methods and pricing, as well as the means by which the food is served to the customer. This article mainly describes the situation in the US, while categorisation differs widely around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Restaurant media</span> Form of advertising

Restaurant media is an emerging form of retail media advertising used in cafeterias, fast food and family restaurants and diners and that reaches consumers while they dine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Net cafe refugee</span> Homeless person in Japan sheltering in a 24-hour café

Net café refugees, also known as cyber-homeless, are a class of homeless people in Japan who do not own or rent a residence and sleep in 24-hour Internet cafés or manga cafés. Although such cafés originally provided only Internet services, some have expanded their services to include food, drink, and showers. The term was coined in 2007 by a Nippon News Network documentary show NNN Document. The net café refugee trend has seen large numbers of people using them as their homes. The shifting definition of the industry partly reflects the dark side of Japanese economy, whose precarity has been noted since the downfall of the national economy that has lasted for decades.

McRefugee is a neologism and McWord referring to those who stay overnight in a 24-hour McDonald's fast food restaurant.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of the hamburger</span>

Evidence suggests that either the United States or Germany was the first country where two slices of bread and a ground beef patty were combined into a "hamburger sandwich" and sold. There is some controversy over the origin of the hamburger because its two basic ingredients, bread and beef, had been prepared and consumed separately for many years in both countries before their combination. Shortly after its creation, the hamburger quickly included all of its currently typically characteristic trimmings, including onions, lettuce, and sliced pickles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Arcos Dorados Holdings</span>

Arcos Dorados Holdings Inc. is a company that owns the master franchise of the fast food restaurant chain McDonald’s in 20 countries within Latin America and the Caribbean. As of December 31, 2010, it represented 6.7% of McDonald's franchised restaurants globally. It has more than 81,250 employees. It is the largest quick-service restaurant (QSR) chain in Latin America and the Caribbean serving over 4.3 million customers daily.

References

  1. McDonald's: Serviços Archived 2007-07-02 at the Wayback Machine
  2. Prichard, Peter: "The Making of McPaper" Andrews McMeel Pub, 1987. Amazon Link
  3. "'McRefugees' in Hong Kong?". USA Today. 1 May 2007.