Are there words still containing を either officially or colloquially?


I used to work in a Japanese restaurant where the owner and his wife always
wrote 「かつを」 rather than 「かつお」. I thought this was kind of cool, so I looked it
up. The only information I could find was that it was likely a misspelling
from before the reform. After all, the reform would have been in effect for
only a couple years by the time they were learning to write.

In any case, this got me curious. Are there any words today that the Japanese
tend to write with を, whether officially accepted or not?




According to standard orthography (post-reform) no words are ever written with
を, except names and words whose writers exercise "artistic license".

But I don't think in your case it's a misspelling, rather a conscious choice
of adhering to pre-reform orthography. (かつお was かつを before the spelling
reform.) Opposed to new nonsense uses, like ヲタク (or ワヰン), I think かつを may
actually be considered somewhat classy (that would depend on the restaurant
though).

Besides restaurants and onsen, ryokan, whatever, を is also reasonably common
in names. I have met a number of women called かをる or かをり. (Of course that's
because 薫り・香り was かをり before the spelling reform.) Similarly with other
obsolete かな like ゑ (e.g. 澄恵 すみゑ) or the repetition mark ゝ (e.g. なゝせ). I have
never seen obsolete かな in men's names and I don't really expect to either,
because of the soft/traditional connotation of かな. (That said, maybe some
parents name their boy レヲン – it's [happened to a dog
already](http://ameblo.jp/tomaru-ko-bou/entry-11890074842.html) – just because
[they can](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11937/legal-
characters-for-first-names-include-hiragana-katakana-jinmeiyo-and-joyo). Ateji
for foreign names, as in [零音](http://name.m3q.jp/list?s=%E3%82%8C&g=1&page=9),
as a trend is maybe already on its way out, so next up might be foreign names
with obsolete katakana, who knows.)




According to standard orthography (post-reform) no words are ever written with
を, except names and words whose writers exercise "artistic license".

But I don't think in your case it's a misspelling, rather a conscious choice
of adhering to pre-reform orthography. (かつお was かつを before the spelling
reform.) Opposed to new nonsense uses, like ヲタク (or ワヰン), I think かつを may
actually be considered somewhat classy (that would depend on the restaurant
though).

Besides restaurants and onsen, ryokan, whatever, を is also reasonably common
in names. I have met a number of women called かをる or かをり. (Of course that's
because 薫り・香り was かをり before the spelling reform.) Similarly with other
obsolete かな like ゑ (e.g. 澄恵 すみゑ) or the repetition mark ゝ (e.g. なゝせ). I have
never seen obsolete かな in men's names and I don't really expect to either,
because of the soft/traditional connotation of かな. (That said, maybe some
parents name their boy レヲン – it's [happened to a dog
already](http://ameblo.jp/tomaru-ko-bou/entry-11890074842.html) – just because
[they can](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/11937/legal-
characters-for-first-names-include-hiragana-katakana-jinmeiyo-and-joyo). Ateji
for foreign names, as in [零音](http://name.m3q.jp/list?s=%E3%82%8C&g=1&page=9),
as a trend is maybe already on its way out, so next up might be foreign names
with obsolete katakana, who knows.)

