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a tiger is not an animal i associate with quietness. a swedish fox would make more sense.

yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
Except “En Svensk räv” only has a single meaning, which is the literal one. This shows you didn’t actually read the [very short] Wikipedia page on this.
- mmhsieh 7y ago
  i did read the very short page, but still, not being a swede, i suppose i just don't get it.
  - yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
    You don’t need any knowledge of the Swedish language. It is explained on the Wikipedia page. “Att tiga” means to keep quiet. One would say “Han/hon tiger” to mean “He/she is keeping quiet”. The word “tiger” in Swedish is also how they say the animal. That’s why it has a double meaning. It’s literally the first sentence of the second paragraph on the page. > In Swedish, the word svensk can mean both the adjective "Swedish" and the noun "Swede" while tiger can mean either the noun for the animal or the present tense of the verb tiga ("to keep silent", or more colloquially to "keep one's mouth shut"), giving the poster the double meaning "a Swedish tiger" or "a Swede keeps silent".
    - mmhsieh 7y ago
      yeah, i do get that, but maybe my mind processes it a bit differently. in my mind, tigers = roaring, aggressiveness. that just overcomes the psychological effect of the wordplay for me.
  - abbe98 7y ago
    "tiger" in Swedish means both tiger and "being quiet".
    - mmhsieh 7y ago
      thanks all for the clarifications. the only point i was making was that for some, the brain can be confused by seemingly contradictory imagery when the goal was to convey some wordplay. this might be lost on me because no such wordplay exists in any language i am familiar with.
      - phamilton 7y ago
        Contranyms (homophones with opposite meanings) exist in English. A potential (contrived) example in English would be to use the notion of a strike in baseball as a covert communication for a worker strike. I could imagine signs and stickers made with an umpire making the strike hand gesture. That's not completely contradictory, but maybe a self defense guide might use that imagery for instructing someone to strike an assailant. And there, a strike in baseball is literally missing the ball, or failing to strike the ball. So very opposite.
        mmhsieh 7y ago
        i was not aware of such a concept; it is interesting. i was thinking back in wwii, if they had a "hush puppies" campaign in lieu of loose lips etc. - it probably would have been mis-processed in my mind as well. puppies = yapping. any other message would be swamped by the puppy noise. my mind goes to the tangible, physical and spatial first, and the abstract/symbolic second.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - mmhsieh 7y ago
    ps, "fox" was a reference to the ylvis music video from 2014 or so. i thought perhaps in the scandinavian cultures foxes were associated with being quiet. universally, they are associated with being cautious and discreet. anyways, i would have been a bad propaganda writer for sweden in the 1940s. it would have been overrun with nazis within weeks if i were in charge of things.
bagacrap 7y ago
Have never personally been hunted but I'd assume they're deadly quiet as they stalk their prey
- mmhsieh 7y ago
  i don't have any feel for the swedish culture or for tigers. but the way my mind processes it, i think of roaring and territoriality when it comes to tigers, which diminishes the effect of the wordplay meant by the signage.
adunk 7y ago
I have always thought that this slight cognitive dissonance was deliberate: "A Swede stays silent" as one meaning, while suggesting "a Swedish roaring aggressiveness" as the other meaning. In wartime, I think both these would make perfect sense, and combining them into one in a simple three-word message is very effective.
- mmhsieh 7y ago
  thinking about it more, perhaps this was the intent; being a noncombatant country, silence among the citizens was perhaps promoted as an act of fortitude in furtherance of their self-preservation, which could be associated with the character of a tiger.
boomlinde 7y ago
It’s a pun, as explained in TFA. It simultaneously means “a swedish tiger” and “a swede is quiet”, a pun that doesn’t translate to foxes.

Except “En Svensk räv” only has a single meaning, which is the literal one. This shows you didn’t actually read the [very short] Wikipedia page on this.

mmhsieh 7y ago
i did read the very short page, but still, not being a swede, i suppose i just don't get it.
- yakshaving_jgt 7y ago
  You don’t need any knowledge of the Swedish language. It is explained on the Wikipedia page. “Att tiga” means to keep quiet. One would say “Han/hon tiger” to mean “He/she is keeping quiet”. The word “tiger” in Swedish is also how they say the animal. That’s why it has a double meaning. It’s literally the first sentence of the second paragraph on the page. > In Swedish, the word svensk can mean both the adjective "Swedish" and the noun "Swede" while tiger can mean either the noun for the animal or the present tense of the verb tiga ("to keep silent", or more colloquially to "keep one's mouth shut"), giving the poster the double meaning "a Swedish tiger" or "a Swede keeps silent".
  - mmhsieh 7y ago
    yeah, i do get that, but maybe my mind processes it a bit differently. in my mind, tigers = roaring, aggressiveness. that just overcomes the psychological effect of the wordplay for me.
- abbe98 7y ago
  "tiger" in Swedish means both tiger and "being quiet".
  - mmhsieh 7y ago
    thanks all for the clarifications. the only point i was making was that for some, the brain can be confused by seemingly contradictory imagery when the goal was to convey some wordplay. this might be lost on me because no such wordplay exists in any language i am familiar with.
    - phamilton 7y ago
      Contranyms (homophones with opposite meanings) exist in English. A potential (contrived) example in English would be to use the notion of a strike in baseball as a covert communication for a worker strike. I could imagine signs and stickers made with an umpire making the strike hand gesture. That's not completely contradictory, but maybe a self defense guide might use that imagery for instructing someone to strike an assailant. And there, a strike in baseball is literally missing the ball, or failing to strike the ball. So very opposite.
      - mmhsieh 7y ago
        i was not aware of such a concept; it is interesting. i was thinking back in wwii, if they had a "hush puppies" campaign in lieu of loose lips etc. - it probably would have been mis-processed in my mind as well. puppies = yapping. any other message would be swamped by the puppy noise. my mind goes to the tangible, physical and spatial first, and the abstract/symbolic second.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mmhsieh 7y ago
  ps, "fox" was a reference to the ylvis music video from 2014 or so. i thought perhaps in the scandinavian cultures foxes were associated with being quiet. universally, they are associated with being cautious and discreet. anyways, i would have been a bad propaganda writer for sweden in the 1940s. it would have been overrun with nazis within weeks if i were in charge of things.

bagacrap 7y ago

Have never personally been hunted but I'd assume they're deadly quiet as they stalk their prey

mmhsieh 7y ago
i don't have any feel for the swedish culture or for tigers. but the way my mind processes it, i think of roaring and territoriality when it comes to tigers, which diminishes the effect of the wordplay meant by the signage.

adunk 7y ago

I have always thought that this slight cognitive dissonance was deliberate: "A Swede stays silent" as one meaning, while suggesting "a Swedish roaring aggressiveness" as the other meaning. In wartime, I think both these would make perfect sense, and combining them into one in a simple three-word message is very effective.

mmhsieh 7y ago
thinking about it more, perhaps this was the intent; being a noncombatant country, silence among the citizens was perhaps promoted as an act of fortitude in furtherance of their self-preservation, which could be associated with the character of a tiger.

boomlinde 7y ago

It’s a pun, as explained in TFA. It simultaneously means “a swedish tiger” and “a swede is quiet”, a pun that doesn’t translate to foxes.