3

Today's online edition of the Asahi had a sentence about drinking water, but it used 水【みず】 instead of お水【みず】, although the context is specifically about drinking water. Why?

蛇口【じゃぐち】をひねれば、すぐに水【みず】が飲【の】める

Turn on the faucet and you can drink water right away.

https://www.asahi.com/articles/ASS573F9BS57OXIE02LM.html?iref=comtop_Topnews2_01

Improve this question
3
  • 4
    Why do you expect it to be お水 just because it's drinking water???
    – aguijonazo
    Commented May 16 at 14:33
  • 2
    @aguijonazo See this question for why that expectation might exist.
    – cmw
    Commented May 16 at 23:13
  • 2
    I think 美化語 tends to be used in a customer-service setting, like in the linked question in the comment above, the sign is posted on a vending machine or coffee machine or something. It's customer facing. However, the the news article when describing a faucet delivering drinking water, it's not client-facing directly, so USING お here could actually sound weird. Just some personal feelings.
    – dvx2718
    Commented May 17 at 3:47

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

The way (cold) water is referred to does not change depending on the type of water, such as whether it is for drinking or not.

Turning 水 into お水, 金 into お金, 風呂 into お風呂 and so on are examples of beautified language (美化語), which is a subset of keigo in a broad sense. Naturally, while you would hear お水 often at a restaurant, people tend not to refer to water in a lake as お水. But this does not mean there is a semantic difference between 水 and お水.

While 美化語 may be used in news articles with a casual and friendly tone, they are not usually used in articles with a formal and serious tone, such as the one you linked to.

Improve this answer

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .