Would You or Wouldn't You?

I'm going to have to be political and vague in this post, as it involves a creative disagreement at work. I'm also going to change some details.

Let's say we were asked to produce an advert promoting train travel from Oxford to Cambridge to students at the university. My idea was to play on the university rivalry and have the headline...

wouldn't you rather be at Cambridge?

...just something to grab their attention with a little low-key fun-poking.

However, in production, this got changed to just...

rather be at Cambridge?

...which I felt completely ruined the mechanics of the line. Humour, even if it is of the lightest sort as in this case, is . A slight change of phrase can turn a hilarious one-liner into a dull dud, and so it is with copy.

In this case, the quest to make the shortest phrase possible does more than shorten the phrase, it changes its meaning. "Rather be at Cambridge" is an abbreviation of "would you rather be at Cambridge?", not "wouldn't". And that changes the whole tone - it becomes a neutral question rather than the challenging, teasing tone implied by "wouldn't you?". Also, starting the sentence with "wouldn't you" draws the eye because it challenges the reader and entices them into interacting with the advert. "Rather be" is a meaningless, unchallenging way to start a sentence, and in requiring the reader to fill in the words, is actually harder work than the longer version.

It. Makes. Me. Mad.