Why is water polite but ice not?


I was amused by, and interested in, this little sign on a water dispenser in a
sandwich shop:

![water dispenser](https://i.stack.imgur.com/vn7aV.jpg)

The options are that you can have ice only, ice and water, or just water.

What intrigued me was that water, `水{みず}`, is preceeded by an honorific `お`,
but ice, `氷{こおり}`, is not.

Both are being served to a customer, so why not `お氷{こおり}`?




The reason is fairly simple, but probably not going to going to be as pattern
based as you would hope.

お[水]{みず} is an example of a segment of Japanese known as [美化語]{びかご}, this is
more or less means being more polite by using a nicer sounding word.

Some example of this are

[食]{た}べる instead of [食]{く}う

[美味]{おい}しい instead of [旨]{うま}い

お[昼]{ひる} instead of [昼]{ひる}

These words are all set, they don't really follow a set pattern other than
many of them start with お.

The source of your confusion probably comes from the fact that お～ is also used
a prefix to honor other people's things/actions. In the case of [美化語]{びかご} you
aren't honoring anything directly.

So to get back to question of 氷 is written as just 氷 because there is no
politer set alternative.




The reason is fairly simple, but probably not going to going to be as pattern
based as you would hope.

お[水]{みず} is an example of a segment of Japanese known as [美化語]{びかご}, this is
more or less means being more polite by using a nicer sounding word.

Some example of this are

[食]{た}べる instead of [食]{く}う

[美味]{おい}しい instead of [旨]{うま}い

お[昼]{ひる} instead of [昼]{ひる}

These words are all set, they don't really follow a set pattern other than
many of them start with お.

The source of your confusion probably comes from the fact that お～ is also used
a prefix to honor other people's things/actions. In the case of [美化語]{びかご} you
aren't honoring anything directly.

So to get back to question of 氷 is written as just 氷 because there is no
politer set alternative.

