Idiom Attic

[pm215]

けんかを売る [kenka wo uru] (lit: to sell a fight)

to pick a fight

In England if you want a fight all you have to do is go looking for one and eventually somebody will oblige; in Japan they're actually a marketable commodity. I wonder if they were historically in short supply or high demand?

I was going to illustrate this with a frame from the Ranma manga, but I don't have access to it here so you'll have to imagine it...

Comments

[sabers4.livejournal.com]

Awfully polite aren't they? In England, you can go to the pub and bottle someone and you have a fight on your hands (unless it's one of these new age pubs that serve plastic cups) but in Japan you have to pay for one (which, for some reason, doesn't surprise me.)

Do you have the last issue of Ranma1/2? I'd be quite interested in seeing it.

[pm215]

Yeah, I bought the whole set when I was in Japan last time (I'm currently at about volume 33 of 38).