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Whereas in English a rookie employee might be referred to as being “green,” in Japanese they are aonisai, meaning a “blue two-year old.” Just wanted to point o

• eloisant 9y ago
  In France it comes from the military, during the revolution conscripts soldiers were wearing blue, while professional royal soldiers were in white. In Japan it's probably like in English, a reference to fruits that are not ripe yet (=> ao ringo).
  • luxpir 9y ago
    A Japanese friend tells me the blue is in reference to the 'Mongolian blue spot'[0] that most Asian, Pacific, Native and African American babies tend to have.... Basically bodies with lots of melanin in them; it's a cluster of melanin at the lower back, sometimes mistaken for a bruise by carers unfamiliar with the phenomenon. [0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_spot https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_spot EDIT: Oh, it's mentioned in the wiki article: > The Mongolian spot is referred to in the Japanese idiom shiri ga aoi (尻が青い), meaning "to have a blue butt", which is a reference to immaturity or inexperience.
    • deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    • fenomas 9y ago
      This explanation can be found on blogs and whatnot, but dictionaries and etymology sites don't seem to hold with it.
  • fenomas 9y ago
    > In Japan it's probably like in English, a reference to fruits that are not ripe yet (=> ao ringo). Dictionaries I've seen say that's the case (or some suggest that the "ao" for youth was borrowed in from Chinese). But to clarify, "ao ringo" doesn't mean an unripe apple - the ao just means green there. As for "aonisai", the etymology there is murky but surprisingly it apparently has nothing to do with two year-old babies. The main theory seems to be that it's a corruption of a older phrase with a similar pronunciation but unrelated meaning.
  • phaemon 9y ago
    I think in English it probably refers to unseasoned wood, which people in the past would have been familiar with.