I'm going to be harsh here, but in the context of a World Heritage City CityX, I think bad style is as bad as illiteracy.
So, what's wrong with the slogan "Making CityX an even better place to live, work and visit"?
At first sight, not much wrong, but it doesn't feel right. The problem is that in the context of the slogan the verbs "to live" and "to work" are intransitive but "to visit" is transitive and is therefore a different part of speech. Gathering them all together following "to" to form their infinitives suggests that they are syntactically equivalent.
"Hang on," you might say, "I don't see the difference". But whereas you would say "I visit CityX", you wouldn't say "I work CityX", nor would you say "I live CityX". You could say correctly, "I live (or work) in CityX", treating the verbs as intransitive. And, using those verbs transitively, you can work a piece of metal and live a life. But the transitive meanings can't be applied to a place.
How could this be remedied? One way would be to change the slogan to "Making CityX an even better place to live in, work in and visit". But it's not so snappy now, and looks (unsurprisingly) pedantic.
So, should we recommend the pedantic version, ask for a new slogan, or let matters lie, despite a pedant's discomfiture?
No comments:
Post a Comment