Once saw that sign hung outside the door of a restaurant once, in place of the usual 営業中 (in business) or 休業中(not in business).
I was very confused and asked my Japanese teacher about it.
Apparently it’s a nice little pun:
One can see it lists 春spring, 夏 summer and 冬winter there, which means autumn 秋(あき) is missing…
So the correct way to pronounce that sign is **あきない**中, which is the pronunciation for 商い中, which means “in business”.
Thought I’d like to share this little thing with you guys 😆
It reminds me of the pronunciation for 小鳥遊…
5 comments
I thought it meant they were closed in autumn xD
四月一日＝watanuki
八月一日＝hozumi
There is a similar story about why dango (団子) are usually sold only in threes, with the three different colors representing spring, summer and winter. Again, there is no autumn, but which is here interpreted as 飽(あ)きない “won’t get fed up”, the negative form of “aki-ru” which means “to be fed up”. So basically ensuring by the power of the Dad Joke that customers never get fed up with the dango…
This is really cool, thanks for sharing!
> It reminds me of the pronunciation for 小鳥遊…
I spent about two days doing my best to try to forget that, so thank you very much for confirming that effort has been in vain.