Sale, der

This popular German shop-window sticker, usually seen on boutiques, does not mean a Schlussverkauf, confined to a certain period, is under way, but that the shop permanently marks down the price of slow-moving goods. The 8th edition of the Duden Fremdwörterbuch pedantically gives the English meaning of der Sale, but my colleague MM assures me that out on the mean streets, shoppers interpret those "Sale" or "Sales" placards as simply meaning, "Our clothes are bargains." The placards are long-term window fixtures. When a shop really holds a sale in the English sense, the sign is changed to Schlussverkauf or Räumungsverkauf. Der Sale is capitalized, given masculine gender, sometimes accretes a terminal S in the nominative without really becoming plural, and inflects to des Sales in the genitive. The initial -s- is soft.