Jarvik7 Wrote:Just something quick @ magamo:酒屋 is a liquor shop, and a bar is 酒場. Etymologically 居酒屋 was a alcohol dealer/shop that also sold cheep sake to individuals to drink there. So it meant a liquor shop where you could use it as a tiny makeshift bar. But the old meaning is lost, and the current meaning is bar, pub, etc. and is close to 酒場. So the 居+(酒+屋) thing is sort of true for the older sense, though it was a kind of 酒屋, not a bar.
I've always thought of 居酒屋 as falling into the same category as 本屋. It's just a 酒屋 where you stay (居) to consume your drink instead of carrying it home. That makes it 居+(酒+屋). I have heard 居酒屋さん before, and there are half a million matches on Google for it...
There are other words that have the 〜屋 form such as 八百屋 (やおや where やお doesn't make sense). It seems ~屋 words tend to allow さん as a speaker gets attached to the shops/services. For example, pretty much every native speaker would say 八百屋さん is ok, but I think 居酒屋さん is less acceptable unless you're using さん as mommy talk or trying to make it sound softer. The mommy talk kind of さん can be used for various kinds of things such as animals (e.g., ねこさん), but I guess it's not the point here.
As for google results, I guess it would give much fewer results if you exclude examples like 居酒屋さん吉 (a bar whose name is さん吉), mommy talk, blog posts by alcoholics, bars' adds trying to sound friendly. Also, some dialects including the Kansai dialect accept さん and equivalent honorifics like はん for a wider range of nouns, though I'm not sure if it's linguistically the same as 本屋さん, 車屋さん, etc.
That said, if I were living very close to a 居酒屋 and thought of it as a member of the local community, I might use 居酒屋さん the same way as 八百屋さん because it has 屋 at the end. Also, I might abuse the 屋さん grammar when talking about 居酒屋 to sound it softer/friendlier/homier/whatever. But other native speakers might not think it's abuse.
if anyone could help, that'd be great.
