A Word for Sacramento

It's reassuring to learn that North American cities, states, and provinces have filled all the potholes and housed all the homeless and are getting down to the real business of government: creating catchy tourism slogans. (See recent efforts by Seattle, Manitoba, and Indianapolis, for starters, and go deeper with this post and this list of the 50 top U.S. city slogans. It's hard to top "Where Yee-Ha Meets Olé," although "Experience Our Sense of Yuma" comes close.)

Some of these civic units have paid bushels of money for dubious returns. Sacramento, however, has modest goals and a budget to match: It's offering a $20 gift certificate to Temple Fine Coffee and Tea on 10th Street to anyone who can come up with one word that defines California's capital city. (For its part, Temple Coffee calls itself "innovative," with "a well knowledgeable staff"--sic.) According to Bob Shallit at the Sacramento Bee, submissions so far have included "poised," "real," and "captivating."

My brother David, who forwarded me the Bee article, reports that someone else nominated "cheap."

I lived in Sacramento for one scorching summer, in a third-floor walk-up with no air-conditioning, so I actually can think of several other words to describe the place. But that was then; perhaps some of you will have a fresher perspective. Submit your word here; contest ends May 31.

Comments

[Mark Gunnion]

Being from the Indianapolis of 1961 to 1979, I always liked that era's nickname, "Crossroads of America". This referred to Indy's spot as a hub in the interstate highway system. My Cub Scout Troop was in the Crossroads of America Council. The "roads" element even tipped a small hat to motor sports, the city's only claim to international fame.

Of course, the nickname that stuck was the one the truckers gave it back in the "Convoy" days - Naptown. Appropriate (sleepy), short, linguistically-based (from the heavily-stressed fourth sylable), memorialized by the great FM rock station WNAP.

Now there's a great women's roller derby team, called the Naptown Roller Girls. I bought my wife a shirt.

http://naptownrollergirls.com/news/