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I saw in What does "No camping 10-21" mean?:

No Camping sign

(Author: gerrit. License: CC BY-SA 4.0)

OP mentioned:

the times [10-21 on the sign] refer to weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays/holidays, respectively

Is it just for this sign, or it is a convention/rule in Norway (and perhaps nearby countries too)?

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    Apparently it's a standard convention that is probably just common knowledge to anyone who lives in Norway. Presumably it's specified in some legal regulation but I haven't found it. Various unofficial sites list it, including wikipedia, and I found some for Sweden too. But I'm not sure what kind of answer you're expecting.
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Aug 9 at 23:22
  • @NateEldredge Thanks. "I'm not sure what kind of answer you're expecting." in that a convention/rule/etc. or just for this sign (eg maybe gerrit saw that the times [10-21 on the sign] refer to weekdays, Saturdays, and Sundays/holidays, respectively on the back of the sign? If a convention/rule, where? (maybe a why too if there's a reason) etc.
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Aug 9 at 23:24
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    They read Wikipedia. This is a road sign, so somebody from Norway may confirm that it's covered in driver's license classes and tests. No parking signs are among the signs they can test you on in my US state.
    – user71659
    Commented Aug 10 at 4:05
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    I’m voting to close this question because 'How did they know' isn't travel related
    – Berend
    Commented Aug 10 at 5:56
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    @Berend I rephrased to make it clearer: "Is it just for this sign, or it is a convention/rule in Norway (and perhaps nearby countries too)?"
    – Franck Dernoncourt
    Commented Aug 10 at 8:48

1 Answer 1

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The short answer is "because it's convention". This form of signifying hours for different days of the week/holidays is used in many situations, whether parking place, store front, or on the bulletin board at the local community centre. These instances don't follow any official regulations, but trusts that the public understands the convention.

However, the Norwegian road authority (Vegvesenet) also uses this convention, and for them the regulations are written in the Norwegian laws, specifically chapter nine, subsection 18 of Skiltforskriften.

enter image description here

The text for 806 Tid says:

The supplementary sign specifies that the main sign only applies for the period of time given by the hours. Black digits refer to weekdays except Saturday, black digits in parenthesis refer to Saturday, red digits refer to Sunday, holidays and public days of celebration.

With this knowledge you might be able to infer when this supermarket is open, including that it's closed on Sundays and other "red" days. enter image description here meny.no

"Red days" is another convention you might run into, and the road signage regulation shows an example of it. In Norwegian a "red day" is any Sunday or other (Lutheran) holiday, or public day off, and they are indeed shown in red in our calendars:

enter image description here www.norskkalender.no

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    +1. FWIW, the same convention applies in Finland and I'm pretty sure Sweden as well: ouka.fi/en/parking/parking-traffic-signs
    – lambshaanxy
    Commented Aug 10 at 12:16
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    It is the standard for road signs in Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, but AFAIK not on Iceland and very commonly used in other places as well, e.g. as mentioned in this answer for opening hours. Since it is used like this in most North-European countries, it may be based on some other standard or specification predating road signs, but I have not been able to find anything about the history and background for such usage.
    – Tor-Einar Jarnbjo
    Commented Aug 10 at 12:56
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    @Tor-EinarJarnbjo: I don't think I've ever seen anything like this on store fronts in Denmark, I suspect because they are more liberal about opening hours. It might say eg. "8–21" and nothing else, meaning those are the opening hours every day. You might see two ranges given, but then the first one is for week-days and the second one for Saturday and Sunday.
    – AkselA
    Commented Aug 10 at 14:58
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    @mattfreake: Yes. Though if it was open on Sundays it would most likely say "Søn. 10–18" or something similar, in red text.
    – AkselA
    Commented Aug 10 at 19:20
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    +1 for explaining "red days", I think the closest Anglophone analogue I found was "bank holidays".
    – htmlcoderexe
    Commented Aug 11 at 19:36

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