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I have learned that "plate" is both _sara_ and _osara_.

The fact that the _o_ can be attached implies to me that it is an honorific
_o_ 御.

My dictionary gives the honorific _o_ as 御 but for _osara_ it gives it as お.

Is "plate" written as both おさら and 御さら?
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2020-12-27T12:34:00.710
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2020-12-30T02:37:44.857
2020-12-27T13:36:41.153
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words orthography nouns honorifics
Is the ''o'' in ''osara'' (plate) an honorific o 御 or just a normal o お?
In _osara_ , the _o_ is indeed honorific and it is commonly written in _kana_
as お, but sometimes also as 御. As you are likely aware, there is often some
flexibility in choosing between _kanji_ , _hiragana_ and _katakana_ to write
any given text.

As for _osara_ , it would usually be written as お皿, because the honorific _o_
is usually written お and because _sara_ is usually written 皿 (this _kanji_ is
taught already in third grade of primary school). As I mentioned, deviations
are possible, but I would say that 御さら is actually a combination you will
basically never come across in real life. (Note that 御 is not taught until
secondary school.)

The same would be true about _ocha_ "tea", which will usually be written お茶,
sometimes 御茶, rarely おちゃ and never 御ちゃ.
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2020-12-27T13:35:07.453
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Most likely お in お皿 is an example of so called 女房言葉 - basically a way of
making words sound "polite" or "fancy" by using the お prefix. There are many
other examples used in everyday Japanese: おでん、おかか、おこわ、おはぎ etc.
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