 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".The phrase is comparable in use to "loose lips sink ships" in the United States and with "careless talk costs lives" and other similar wartime slogans in the United Kingdom.The famous poster for the propaganda campaign was created by Bertil Almqvist in 1941, commissioned by the Swedish National Board of Information (, "SIS").