8 ms·
They're missing an explanation for one of the more famous but subtle IKEA naming puns. "Indira" is at this page says an Indian name and also the name of an Ind
by msandin 5y ago
They're missing an explanation for one of the more famous but subtle IKEA naming puns.
"Indira" is at this page says an Indian name and also the name of an India-inspired IKEA bedspread. But bedspred in Swedish would be "överkast" which would translate directly as "over throw" but could also be read as "over caste". From a Swedish PoV the Indian caste system looks like a social ranking system and to Swedes one of the most famous (and thus presumably socially high ranking) Indians "just happened" to be named... Indira.
- zeteo 5y agoWell, she did champion the lower castes, so there's also that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibi_Hatao https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garibi_Hatao
- mongol 5y agoSounds like a conspiracy theory to me.
- msandin 5y agoI mean, obviously possible but I suspect that the clumsy translation adds a lot of obtuseness to it. In Swedish it looks straightforward enough that you only need to squint just for a moment when you see "överkast" and "Indira" together and then you get that familiar feeling of "How could I ever miss that?".
- Cederfjard 5y agoIf you’d like another data point, I’m also Swedish, and if I saw a bedspread/överkast with an Indian name in an otherwise Swedish, ”punny” context, I would 100% think ”oh, because of the caste system”. I find it very unlikely that they would’ve gone for this name without making the connection. The bit connecting Indira Gandhi to a high/”over” caste is a bit more tenuous to me, I’d just have thought the idea was as simple as caste -> India -> Indian name (Indira), but it’s certainly possible.
- BurningFrog 5y agoExcept the IKEA names have many such "dad joke" names.
- fxtentacle 5y agoIn Germany, we have the children's bed "Gutvik" which, if you pronounce it the German way, sounds like "gut fick" which literally means good fuck. Or the "Poäng" chair, which sounds like "Po eng" meaning tight on the butt.