Misspelled Dunglish city slogan for Hilversum
In 2012, the world-famous Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam decided to adopt the improper use of a space between words and go with Rijks Museum, which was ‘designerplained’ as “everybody already says ‘Rijks’ as a nickname, the spelling just codifies it”.
But now Hilversum, Utrecht has gone one step further and used dyslexic-looking Dunglish spelling to make a point that falls flat with most Dutch folks who have commented on this marketing move.
Firstly, using some sort of English instead of Dutch to try to be cool and international while sadly rejecting one’s own language like a piece of trash will never win my favour. Secondly, ‘live’ could be live (verb) or ‘live’ (live television), which has a different pronunciation. You’re now confusing people for no reason. ‘We live here’ is a clear message, but not by playing jumble with the letters making up the word ‘Hilversum’ and then putting them back right for the URL. And the URL should read hilversumlive and not livehilversum, ideally, to make a strong point (or something like livefromhilversum).
A quick poll on the source link below says 77% of people thought it was shite. The problem remains that you cannot rewrite English to suit non-English people and expect English speakers (they said they wanted to appeal to visitors), people with English as a second-language other than Dutch speakers (imagine Japanese) and Dutch speakers to read this without getting a headache. If 77% liked it you could call it a success, but that’s not the case.
(Link and image: marketingonline.nl)
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