Don't Follow Me...

The license plates here in Ontario display the slogan, "Yours to Discover." 

Older folks will remember that they used to say, "Keep it Beautiful" to encourage respect for the environment.  But in the early 80's, they adopted the province's tourism slogan, "Yours to Discover." Ontario has had other catchphrases, but I guess none have had the same kind of emphasis, since they haven't made it onto the plates yet.

I'm not sure how far an ad campaign would have to go before they start putting a new slogan on the plates.  I'm kind of worried about this, because the latest tourism campaign have been focused on a kind of cryptic phrase.

As an ad phrase, it gets attention and is distinctive, even if it doesn't have a strong message.  But whether it works as an ad campaign or not, I have to point out to our government that it would be particularly bad on our license plates.

A Very Meta License Plate

In school, whenever we were given some sort of wide-open creative writing assignment, like writing a poem on a topic of our choice, I'd usually get past the writer's block by writing about writing the assignment. You know, write a poem called, The Blank Page or something.  I'm sure there's several students like that in every class, since it's such a convenient ploy:  I'd like to think that Charlie Kaufman's Oscar nomination for Adaptation represented all of us.

This all comes to mind because today I saw a personalised license plate that read, "VANITPL8" (geddit? "vanity plate?") Once again reminded me how tempting it is to fill a creative void with a mind-bending self-reference.  Of course, I used the technique to get out of writing assignments imposed on me;  I think if it was an assignment that I had chosen to spend $250 for the privilege of doing, I could conjure up something a little more original.