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Comment by pinko | Hacker News Reader

Knowing quite a bit about the world of Costa Rican grocery stores -- many of which started using "Hiper-" (spanish for hyper-) as a prefix in their names a few decades ago, to one-up markets merely named "Super-" [1] -- I'm actually quite suprised they didn't just rename themselves "Hiper Mario" and save the legal fees. But bravo to them for winning against all odds.

[1] https://ticotimes.net/2004/04/02/hipermas-supermarket-aims-f...

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This is interesting.

We have the same in France. The first big "big surface" stores were named supermarché, then we got hypermarché and the funniest is that now we have superette, a small surface store, branded like the super/hyper but within the city center.

The "ette" French suffix is to reduce the main word.

You mean a diminutive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diminutive

> A diminutive is a word obtained by modifying a root word to convey a slighter degree of its root meaning, either to convey the smallness of the object or quality named, or to convey a sense of intimacy or endearment, and sometimes to belittle something or someone.

Yeah, it's funny, a word consisting both of an augmentative (the opposite of diminutive) and a diminutive.

Thank you, I had the German word in mind and was not able to find the English one in my foggy brain.

Um. The German word is Diminutiv.

Were you thinking of „Verkleinerungsform“? Do people still use those Germanized terms? It feels a little old-fashioned to me, like saying „besitzanzeigendes Fürwort“ instead of Possessivpronomen.

> Do people still use those Germanized terms?

In a way? I always found it more sensible to use German words like "Namenwort" instead of "Nomen" to express German grammar, instead of using latin terms. After all Latin is a language that comes from a completely different language family to start with and is not used at all in Germany except when wanting to pretend you're fancy (law, medicine, grammar).

I had the word "Verniedlichung" in mind, of course this is also not the right term, but as I been living outside of France for the past 25 years, switching daily between French, German and English, I am sometimes "stuck" and can't get the right word out. And this in whatever language I am thinking at the moment.

I now accept that I am losing my French while not being really fluent in any other language.

Same for me. My brain broke down somewhat, but luckily I am retired. I often ask AI like "What's the word for a smaller variant of something?", super helpful.

I think supermarché is more a type of shop that offers products that are traditionally from different shop (you've got a bakery, green-grocer, butcher, cheese-monger, electronics, etc... under one shop), while the hypermarché are really defined the "big surface" you mentioned.

So it make sense to have a superette in the corner of the street that offer everyday goods while an hypermarché have clothing, DIY materials, big appliances, etc. on sale..

Actually, there is a definition for "hypermarket", which is to combine supermarket and department store [1].

Most supermarkets that are big enough are in fact "hypermarkets" nowadays.

A "superette" is a small supermarket.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermarket

Sorry I explained myself poorly: I wasn't saying that a superette wasn't a supermarket, I was pointing out that OP curious remark about superette being a "small big shop" wasn't as contradictory as it seems.

Also, while we're digging Wikipedia: the French one points to the national statistic institute that have a definition of an hypermarket as "non specialized store that's over 2 500 m^2 in surface and make more than a third of their revenue from food".

> we have superette, a small surface store, branded like the super/hyper but within the city center

I think we visited a few of those when we had a family holiday to France last year. They seemed really nice.

In Mexico I’ve seen a lot of small shops (what we would call “bodegas” in US cities) called Mini-Super. Always gives me a chuckle.

There is a supermarket chain called Big C in Thailand, and the smallest ones are called Mini Big C, which has always amused me.

That's meaningful though, at least in my experiences in France circa twenty years ago, a supermarché would be a supermarket like here in the UK, and a hypermarché would have all kinds of other stuff like clothes, back to school stationery, seasonal gear/toys, etc. - as well as other mini shops around the edge, cutting keys, McDo, etc.

This comment has to go in https://news.ycombinator.com/highlights.

How did I never know this existed? Are there more secret pages like this??

https://news.ycombinator.com/lists

(It's linked at the bottom of each page, along with the Guidelines, FAQ, etc)

"Hiper" refers to something bigger than "Super", and it's common to respect that convention. Wikipedia defines both [1][2]. From this photo[3] the size of "Super Mario" follows that convention. It is obviously true that there are more options for names but congratulations to "Don Mario".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypermarket

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supermarket

[3] https://www.techspot.com/news/106591-super-mario-supermarket...

i think hypermarkets achieve their bigness not by being bigger supermarkets, but by selling everything a supermarket sells, and then also selling everything a department store sells.

Yes.

A super is a like Kroger's or Walmart Express.

A hyper is a Walmart Supercenter.

Actually, "hiper-something" trend started with Hipermas, created by a bigger local supermarket chain (Corporación Supermercados Unidos, which owned others like: Más x Menos [More for less] and Pali). They were bought by and renamed to Walmart. Sharing the "hiper" prefix I only know HiperDiego, which like a Walmart big.

Here most are "super-" if they are big enough. if they are smaller "mini super-". All the categories before are self service.

If they are really tiny (a window) and not self service then they are called "pulpería".

> Knowing quite a bit about the world of Costa Rican grocery stores

I love the internet. Mostly.

He also could have named it "Super Alfaro" or "Super Jose".

doesn't have the same ring to it, now does it ?

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