What's so rebellious about a Danish Christmas?

December 9, 2010 2:32 PM

Why does my Christmas mug have "rebellion" written on it? While on vacation in Iceland last week, I bought a mug at a Tiger store. The mug is red with the word "oprør" in green. Given the colors and the season I assumed this would have something to do with Christmas, but once I got home and looked it up I discovered that "oprør" means "rebel" or "rebellion" (in Danish). Is there any meaning to this that I'm not getting? Are the Christmas colors just a coincidence? Why is a multinational chain store fomenting rebellion? I'm mildly mystified.
posted by mskyle to Writing & Language (6 answers total)

couldn't it just be a cute brand name?
posted by facetious at 2:41 PM on December 9, 2010

It sounds like "uproar." Could that be another meaning?
posted by musofire at 2:42 PM on December 9, 2010

I would imagine it's about resistance to the banking bailout deal.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 2:46 PM on December 9, 2010

My small experience with Tiger suggests that at least a portion of their inventory at any one time is "odd lots." I don't know what specific meaning it had in its initial marketing but I suspect that they got a random item at a good price and that the holiday colors are coincidental.
posted by Morrigan at 3:03 PM on December 9, 2010

Best answer: It's a pun. Oprør is literally a stir-up. That's what you do with your coffee, stir it, no?
posted by Namlit at 3:09 PM on December 9, 2010 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: I think Namlit's got it - the way it's written on the mug "op" and "rør" are kind of broken up into separate words, which I left out of the question so as to be concise but which is apparently a salient fact after all!
posted by mskyle at 3:23 PM on December 9, 2010