How do you pronounce שופרסל?

In my last post, I posed a probing question that elicited riveting debate in the comments-- how do you pronounce the name of the grocery store chain found on these boxes of dried fruit? Take a closer look:

 

In case anyone reading this doesn't understand Hebrew, this is a tricky question in part because Hebrew is written without most vowels and some letters-- including two in this store's name-- can make more than one sound.  ש can make a "sh" sound or an "s" sound, and פ can make a "p" sound or a "f" sound, so this word's pronunciation comes down to this: sh/s--oo/oh--p/f--a/e/i/o/u/silent--r--a/e/i/o/u/silent--s--a/e/i/o/u/silent--l. Are we confused yet? 

But, see, Israelis all know how words are pronounced, so the system never fails. You just have to be in the know. Right?

So, let's narrow the answer down to the choices proposed by this blog's astute readers in the comments:

Supersell (which wouldn't be weird at all by Israeli standards, Bryan-- I mean, we have a mall known as the Grand Kenyon, in one of the worst English-Hebrew puns I know!)

Shufersal (means "quality basket," supposedly)

Supersal ("Super" makes sense because Israelis call any grocery store the "super"-- see this post about grocery shopping like an Israeli-- and "sal" still means "basket")

Supersol (no idea why "sol" would make sense)

One of the easiest ways to find the answer to this question is to try out all the likely URLs for the grocery store chain. The one that gets to the correct site is the right answer. Let's try it out:

www.supersell.co.il

www.supersal.co.il

www.supersol.co.il

www.shufersal.co.il

Oops. Except for "supersell," they all work.  

The answer to this trick question is that Israelis don't actually know how some of their words are pronounced. I most often hear people call this chain "supersal," but its name is technically "shufersal" and used to be "supersol." All those URLS redirect to this address, which expresses the brand confusion perfectly: http://www.shufersal.co.il/supersol_he/ 

In part, I suspect this name confusion lies in some kind of tax/anti-trust-lawsuit dodge: Who, us? But we're just a brand new chain, Shufersal. You must mean the old grocery story that used to try to drive all competitors out of the market, Supersol."Mark my words-- they'll be "Supersell" within a decade.

But the bottom line is that Israelis don't actually know how to say the name of this grocery store. In fact, you see Israelis mispronounce other words in fabulous ways too, especially when these words come from foreign languages. Anyone want to go bowel-ing with me? Then we can go get Whoffers at Boorger King! We can wash dishes in our Virlpool dishwasher! (And, as someone else in Benji Lovitt's hilarious Facebook feed pointed out, Israelis are still mourning the death of Parrah Paucett.)

So if you are struggling to read Hebrew without vowels, take heart: Israelis can't always read Hebrew either. :)