Well, it certainly alarmed me:
At the moment I noticed the slogan—on the side of a recruiting van for the Oakland Police Department, as it turned out—I wasn't thinking about anything excerpt merging into the left-hand lane, but I immediately began wondering, "More what?" More exhausting? More aggravating? More migraine-inducing? Probably all of the above, knowing Oakland as I do.
On the other hand, I could almost hear the immortal Inigo Montoya muttering disapprovingly, "I do not think it means what you think it means." Let's accentuate the positive! Perhaps "more" means "more rewarding," "more exciting," even "more doughnuts." Who knows?
Because ... those quotation marks. They worry me. Slogans are supposed to be declarations of fact, not snippets of overheard dialogue. The punctuation renders the slogan slightly shady, somewhat second-hand.
And then there's the tacit assumption that the slogan-writer knows what I think. Just a little high-handed, no?
By the way, the OPD recruiting site is a different entity from the regular OPD site, which appears to have been designed and programmed by someone's nephew taking his first community-college Web class. I know Oakland is hurting, but this is an embarrassment.
For the record, my favorite unofficial Oakland slogan is this one. Don't bother to search for it; it appears on a T-shirt I bought about 15 years ago and have never seen since.
That's my town!
I lived in Oakland in an old apartment building on Broadway behind the 7/11 on 41st and Broadway for several years. Among other things that happened on or near that corner the 7/11 was robbed twice on the same night. Just over the hill to the East was Piedmont Ave. a gentle bit of tasteful shops and restaurants perfect for a Sunday morning or weekday night.
Your T-shirt says it so well!
Posted by: Nick | January 31, 2009 at 05:06 AM