I won’t get into the various stigmas or classifications done here in Israel according to the car you drive. That is a completely separate Zabaj post. However, on top of having to deal with that, since I drive a Mitsubishi (מיצובישי) I also have to hear it mispronounced and mis-spelled a lot, including at the official Mitsubishi garage I take my car to be fixed at.
The most popular is Mitsibushi/מיציבושי (mee-tsee-boo-shee)
Followed by Mitsubushi/מיצובושי (mee-tsoo-boo-shee)
You’ll find it misspelled like this on any and all of the car selling sites including Yad2 and MyCar.
This is so widespread that even in the official Israel Trade & Commerce publications they seem to be making these mistakes, writing “Mitsibushi” on their English-language list of Australian car manufacturers.
Is it cuz they associate it with Japan and the word sushi?
February 23, 2007 at 3:34 PM |
First of all, I love your blog — thanks for it!
Here’s another theory on this one — there’s a word for ‘kitty cat’ that Israelis use — ‘Mitzi’, as in ‘Bo-i mitzi, mitzi, mitzi !’ So it’s a short jump from that to mitzi-bushi.
Maybe???
February 24, 2007 at 3:59 PM |
I think it’s due to the fact Mitsubishi is made of 4 syllables. all rather odd in Hebrew. 3 of them have an EE sound to them (you don’t have the soft i sound in Hebrew, so mits = meats).
We all know there’s an OO in there somewhere, but we can’t always recall where. and once you’re that lost, maybe there’s actually more than one.
November 13, 2007 at 4:18 PM |
I”ve heard people say mishibushi, I think they’re changing it to include the word שיבוש (mistake).