Eifo eifo eifo ... ha-shufan?
Inspiration for the below courtesy of the good folks at Zabaj.Have you noticed how Israelis take English words, turn them into Hebrew, and then back into English again, but differently?
I was at the cinema just now, and there was a preview for a pretty good-looking movie called "Beaufort". It became בופור in Hebrew, which is perfectly legitimate, but then for the website, it got turned back into English as "Bufor". But it doesn't end there.
Super-Sal, the supermarket chain, clearly got its name from "super" and סל ("basket"). But for its website, it is "shufersal". Like it came from "shofar" or something. But it doesn't even end there.
I got into a taxi in Jerusalem and asked the driver to take me to Chopin St. (רחוב שופן). He had no idea what I was talking about. After a few minutes, and a few attempts to explain where I wanted to go: "Oh ...... you mean Rechov Shufan". Yes, silly me. My favourite Polish composer's name really came from the word for "bunny".
Labels: Language
posted by Daniel @ 4:28 PM
7 Comments:
I found this here:
http://theantisemite.blogspot.com/
I think you're going to love this one.
“Of course all languages come from Hebrew! That’s evident!” yammered the cab driver to the linguist, who realized all too late that you simply don’t argue with an Israeli cabbie. “There are plenty proofs. Do you know how they say “egzoz” (the "official" Hebrew for exhaust pipe) in English? – Egzozt!”
Totally. "Brakesim" too is uncanny.
I was confused by שופרסל. There are a lot of supermarkets in Israel that are סופר, clearly being "super", and while everyone calls שופרסל "supersal", their web address is either supersal.co.il and shufersal.co.il, preferring the latter. And ש would rarely be used to transcribe a foreign s.
So I actually think the word might be שופר = "shopper", and that, too, has become distorted because no one reads it that way! Who knows?
But of course derivation from the Semitic root שפר meaning beauty or goodness is a good possibility too, and it's likely a pun on that root and סופר.
Interesting regarding "shefer" - I know a guy with "Shefer" as a surname, and didn't know what it meant. On another note, "raketa". Does it come from "rocket"? Or is there another root?
Where have you gone?
I have gone into hibernation (read, working, studying, and Facebook). I'll do my best to extract myself.
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