The police department of the canton of Basel-Stadt has advertised for new recruits with a numerical slogan: "Vergiss Deinen 08/15 Job und starte eine 117er Karriere" ("Forget your 08/15 Job and start a 117 career"). While "08/15" can be translated as "run-of-the-mill", "117" is the emergency phone number to call the police in Switzerland. In other words, leave the dull routine of your current job for the excitement and variety of being a police officer. The irony is that the expression "08/15" comes from a standard machine gun used by the German Army during World War One. I wonder if the creators of the advertisting campaign intended that irony or not. (Andrew Shields, #111words, 2 September 2023)
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