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Is ゆっくり the only mimetic expression that accepts the honorific prefix ご?

And for that matter, why does it take the honorific prefix ご- which is usually
meant for 漢語?
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2019-06-12T07:37:41.737
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2019-06-16T04:25:54.190
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question
honorifics
Why does ゆっくり take the honorific prefix ご?
There are a number of exceptions regarding the usage of お/ご, and, ultimately,
you have to learn them individually.

According to a survey by Tanaka (1972) based on the word usage of newspapers,
お attaches to a kango roughly 20% of the time, but ご very rarely attaches to a
wago (they identified only ごもっとも and ごゆっくり). Even a [long academic
article](https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/148765785.pdf) dedicated for this
topic lists only ごもっとも, ごゆっくり and ごゆるり. ゆるり is mimetic, so ごゆっくり is **not**
the only mimetic expression that accepts ご. Still, you can say the number of
such words is very small.

Kango that take お tend to be common and daily words such as お風呂, お料理, お財布, お写真
and お掃除. A few words accept both お and ご, and in such cases ご sounds stiffer
(e.g. お誕生 vs ご誕生, お返事 vs ご返事). FWIW, I feel ごゆっくり, ごもっとも and ごゆるり also have
formal, polite or even a little pompous overtones.
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2019-06-13T02:30:01.933
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2019-06-13T04:45:59.387
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answer
For clarity, I edited my answer by adding the text inside [] in the 1st
paragraph below:

In addition, if one prefers to use a one-words sentence like "Relax!", saying
only "ゆっくり” sounds confusing [because saying only ゆっくり would mean "be careful,
do it slowly!", instead of "relax!"]. Maybe ゆっくりどうぞ could work without a ご
but, at least I wouldn't say so.

So, ご it is partly to ensure that the person to which ゆっくり is adressed to
feels that he/she hears it in a positive way.

p.s. On the other hand using both ご and どうぞ in a sarcastic way, the meaning
could also be "You are just sitting there on the sofa and you really should
realize yourself that while I am washing the dishes, there are lots of things
that you could do, like maybe taking out the rubbish!"
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2019-06-13T14:10:52.360
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