A question of English

I am sure the sentiments expressed in the new Police motto are obvious to all and fully supported within the Force. But most native speakers, and not a few English scholars in the local community, will be repeating the words over and over wondering if the new motto "we serve with pride and care" is actually good English.

Surely it should be "we serve with pride and we care" or "we serve with pride and are caring"? To "serve with care" would be more appropriate as an instruction to a waiter not to drop a bowl of hot soup onto a customer. More sinister still, it sounds like an injunction to Force members to "watch your back" or "don't get caught".

I suspect that what we have here is known as an 'ellipsis' (though I defer to experts in English grammar on this point) and it has distorted the intended meaning.

There is much emphasis within government and the Force in writing correct formal Chinese. It is a pity that the same approach is not taken by the Force in its formal statements in English. After all, in good PR it is not just what you say but the way you say it that counts.

Simon Hannaford
Senior Inspector
Support Wing

PPRB responds . . .

We appreciate the feedback and views. And, yes, we agree that in good PR what you say and how you say it is very important, which is why the new Force slogan is so good in our view. It is short, catchy, memorable, and gets straight to the point - all obligatory traits in good PR work. There is no room for verbosity in slogans and this motto rolls right off the tongue.

At risk of sparking an academic debate on 'good English', we will just say that the slogan's grammar is fine and that PR and English experts were consulted in its writing. We would also like to point out that poetic or journalistic licence (often used in slogan writing and other PR work) allows certain grammatical rules to be broken, and the use of elliptical sentences. Superfluous wording is not catchy, is not memorable and can leave people with a 'mouthful of marbles'.

Although some may consider the 'care' in the slogan marginally ambiguous, we feel its sentiments are straightforward enough, especially being in the context of policing. We are somewhat surprised though by Mr Hannaford's atypical reading of the motto as having "sinister" overtones. We can assure readers that there are no subliminal messages in it!

Officers have a lot of pride in the Force, in their work, their reputation and in Hong Kong. They also have a lot of care and compassion for the people they serve, the people of Hong Kong. This is reflected in our new slogan.

We serve with pride and care.

Wong Doon-yee
Chief Superintendent
Police Public Relations Branch