From now on this comm might get a little weird. I've been advised to take my grammar "lessons" and "theories" and properly cite all the quoted lines used, beautify the posts a bit as if I were writing an academic paper, then publish them to earn money. So I'm gonna start making posts like what I just described but for single grammar concepts (first up, "お and ご", next "しまう", "さん") and properly cite things as I go. Here's the first post, I'll just do things like normal and make the "ground post" then lengthen/edit/improve it all later.

"お and ご"

Part 1: お/ご With Nouns

お is said to possibly come from おおきい [大きい] "great, big"[3] or おおみ [大御] "divine"[4], and ご is supposedly short for ごぜん [御前] "the front of/(standing) before high-status people"[4]. The well-known archaic/polite word ござる、ございます is actually split into three separate "words" if you look at the kanji: ご ざ る (御 座 る, ご + "seat/sit"). Generally speaking, お and ご are said to have the same usage except that お is normally for Japanese words and ご is normally for Chinese-derived words. They're said to not normally be used for words derived from other languages (ex. English), but this isn't really the case as you'll still see stuff like "お ビール" all the time.

It should be noted that this is a grammar point that Japanese people themselves have to be taught how to use properly, meaning that if they don't know the "rules" for how to use it they'll put お on a word that's supposed to have ご or vice versa, or they'll put お/ご on every single word in the sentence, etc. I'll examine these "mistakes" later to find out how they fit in with my theory.

お/ご is often said to mean one or more of the following:

#1 "another person's (something)" (顔 a/the face, お 顔 your/their face), aka being a replacement for personal pronouns[3].

#2 [as described by my Japanese teacher] having nothing to do with politeness but being the so-called "beautifying words" (美化語 bi-ka go, "beauty-ify words"), which when explained by the same teacher are actually not for beauty or politeness but just are used to "cutesify" (犬 dog, お 犬 doggie).

#3 [as described by individual Japanese people I asked] being words that don't really mean anything at all but are "just the way you always say things", especially in the case of useful, shared, household etc items (茶 tea, お 茶 tea). Books describe it as "showing respect" to that household object[3].

#4 [as described by individual Japanese people I asked] being used to distinguish between hand-made items and natural items (さけ [鮭] salmon, お さけ [酒] alcohol; 握り a handful, お 握り a riceball).

#5 [my early theory], used along with differences in word intonation to help distinguish words with the same or similar pronunciation (さけ [鮭] salmon, お さけ [酒] alcohol; にぎり [握り] a handful, お にぎり [握り] a riceball).

However despite never having read that anyone else thinks this, the most common usage of お seems to me to be identical to that of the word "the", whether or not we're talking about ourselves or someone else. To illustrate:

　[1]たま に　お 客 さん から　ゲイ なん です か？ って 聞かれる って　美門 さん が
　tama ni, o kyaku san kara nan desu ka?, tte kikareru tte, mikado san ga
　"every so often Mikado-san gets asked, 'are [you] gay?' by the customers".

　お 花 は 店 の 中 に あります
　o hana wa mise no naka ni arimasu
　"the flowers are inside [the] shop"
(flower shop sign in Sendai, which normally showcases its flowers outside on the sidewalk)

　まもなく、北 仙台 です。お 出口 は 右 側 です
　mamonaku, kita sendai desu. o deguchi wa migi gawa desu
　soon (arriving in) north sendai. the exit is (on the) right side.
(local sendai train announcement)

　お 芋 さん は ５ 本 です ね
　o imo san wa go hon desu ne
　"there's five [of] the [sweet] potatoes, right?"
(cashier in Sendai confirming how many I bought)

　[2, pg68]卒業 する と、ぼく は 長 距離 電話 を かけて 訊いた。お 次 は？親父 に は 答えられず、結婚 で も しろ と 言った。
　sotsugyō suru to, boku wa chō-kyori denwa o kakete kīta. o tsugi wa? oyaji ni wa kotaerarezu, kekkon de mo siro to itta.
　upon graduating, i made a long-distance phone call and asked. [what's] the next [step i should take]? pops was unable to answer, 'even go get married' [he] said.

　[?]お 二 方 と も どうも ありがとう ございます
　o futa kata to mo dōmo arigatō gozaimasu
　"thanks to both the two of you"

　お 好み 焼き
　o konomi yaki
　"the (to-your-)liking grill"
(the name for a noodle pancake with whatever toppings and stuffings you want, which ends up resembling a pizza)

As the usage of "お/ご/the" relies on context, outside of context it can be impossible to justify why or how it is being used. For example, ご 名答 "the correct/excellent answer" on its own seems strange, but in the context of episode 1 of Mushishi, a boy is supposed to paint the image of his grandmother's cup (without being given details as to shape, colour etc) in order to solve a major problem. He has never seen the cup himself, but in the end he paints her exact cup, to which the other character immediately replies "ご 名答! (that's) the correct answer!".

A few words like お 前 ("you", but literally being "お front"), お 陰 ("thanks to", "you", but literally being "お shade") stem from phrases like "the person standing in front of the throne" and "in the shade of someone else" and whatnot. Essentially, a word said alone is never actually alone — we're just not saying the rest of the sentence: "thank you!" is short for "I thank you", "morning!" is short for "I hope you're having a good morning" and similar. The same is true for Japanese phrases such as お 代わり "the replacement" meaning "please I'd like another one of this same thing" (I want the replacement of what was originally in my cup... etc).

The English word "the" itself comes from the same origin as the words "these, those, this, that, it" (that last one used to be closer to "thit") and even more archaically from the same origin as "he, she"; indeed in English's cousin languages (English used to essentially be a regional variant of these languages a thousand or more years ago), such as Swedish where it is "det, den", the one word still means "it, that, the" today (jag gillar det - I like it; det där - that over there; det röda - the red one), and when referring to people its usage is still related to "he, she" (den som röker - the (person) who smokes, he/she who smokes).

The usage of the word "the" varies slightly from language to language, for example:

① Some languages such as Esperanto are able to use it to show that the word referred to is a category or idea in general ("The vampire is a creature of the night" instead of "Vampires are creatures of night(s)/nighttime"). This usage probably includes such English phrases as "the kindness of strangers" and "the death of a loved one", in which we're referring to a specific sort of "idea".

② Some such as Scandinavian double up the word ("The red the car" instead of "The red car").

③ Some such as Spanish and Esperanto can use it to mean "my own, their own" etc, as in "I washed the hands" instead of "I washed my hands".

④ Some such as English use it to distinguish "my" or "our" and sometimes "their" items from general items ("I saw the king" is the king of my/our country; "I listened to the radio" is the radio in my house etc). This is no doubt just a variation of usage ③ above. We in English often have to add detail at times when the thing is not belonging to "me/us", as in "I saw the king of Sweden" when it's not our own country's king, or in how we say "the death of a loved one" instead of simply "the death" (as certain other languages do say).

⑤ Some such as Chinook Jargon have it as a very general word (in CJ's case, "this, that, the, those" etc are all the same one word). This mirrors the ORIGINs of the English/Germanic word "the" as described further below.

Overall usage ④ and ③ seem to combine to mean explanation #1 for お/ご above, as will be illustrated further below. However, you need to understand that the usage of "the" in all languages is tied to it being the description of another word, the same as words like "big, strange, this", and different languages treat this in different ways. In Scandinavian, we're describing both "red" and "child" with "the", so "the" is linked individually/separately to both words with the result being that it's doubled ("the [red] the [child]"). In English we link it to the phrase instead of the word ("the [red child]"), which is part of why we're allowed to have a huge list of adjectives to describe some one noun and it's totally fine ("the [big old red car]").

At the same time, linking to the "phrase" and not the "word" is probably part of why English doesn't seem to line up two of these kinds of "phrase" descriptive words right after one another where Swedish can: we don't say "the there car" like what Swedish says ("den där bilen").

So far the Japanese お/ご appears to be the same as English's "the" in that it's technically tied to a "phrase", the difference being that a "phrase" in Japanese can also be either one single word or two words (each kanji is technically a separate word in most words that use multiple kanji). This means, if a description of the noun we would otherwise put "the" on is attached to that noun by means of の or something else, or if お/ご is used within the same "phrase" already, お/ご might be less likely to be used:

　[5, ep1]さあ　残り の 酒 を すべて 飲み 干され よ
　sā, nokori no sake o subete nomi hosare yo
　"get to it, drink (the) remaining alcohol dry!"

In daily life, さけ [酒] "alcohol" (as well as ちゃ [茶] "tea", はし [箸] "chopsticks", etc) is one of the words almost always used with お. However in the above quote, it's missing お. This is I theorize due to that we're already describing the "phrase-word" alcohol as being "(the) remaining/leftover alcohol" (残り の 酒); thus adding a second "phrase-word" like "お/the" is incompatible in exactly the same way as how English doesn't say "the this car". Thus, according to my theory, in Japanese:

○ drink [the [[alcohol]] =
○ drink [remaining [[alcohol]]

× drink [the this [[alcohol]] =
× drink [the remaining [[alcohol]]

Meaning, if we look at it with English logic, the first pair of phrases is okay and "logically/grammatically" work in the same way; the second pair is not okay and "logically/grammatically" work in the same way. Whether the second pair is okay in Japanese or not might be another story, just as it's different in Swedish.

菓子 "dessert goods" (cake, candy, cinnamon rolls etc) is another word commonly used with お attached, as in:

　[6]全 国 の お 菓子 屋 さん　お 菓子 何 で も 情報 館
　zen koku no o kasi ya san, o kasi nan de mo jōhō kan
　"the country-wide dessert shop (people), the dessert(-related) anything goes information house"

The さん of お 菓子 屋 さん will be explained in another book, and the rest relies on knowing Japanese word order, so here I will just say that if 全 国 の "country-wide" were removed and we simply said お 菓子 屋 "the dessert shop", it'd make perfect sense in English too. In English, Scandinavian etc we both see and say generic shop names/signs like "the hat shop", "the pizza place", "the nature company" (these are probably, whether the owner has thought about it or not, short for "The hat shop of Baker Street", "The pizza place owned by Mark" and so on); I think this is the same thing in Japanese.

There are some other times when お/ご isn't used, and this of course can be chalked down to that just like we don't always use the word "the" in English every time we say a certain word, neither does Japanese:

　酒 飲んだ
　sake nonda
　"(I) drank alcohol"
(not "I drank the alcohol that was in the fridge/available" or some other such phrase... although we very well could say that too)

(insert example of o o o all in a row words)

In a number of places in English (as in the last part of usage #3) it has been claimed that お/ご shows "respect to the item". At the same time it's commonly said that "respectful words" in general aren't used towards oneself. If you put two and two together you end up realizing that since sentences like お 腹 が　痛い usually means "my stomach hurts", not someone else's stomach hurts.

　[12]私 の お 父 さん も よく 身長 伸ばそう と して いました…辛い こと が ある と お 父 さん は いつも 身長 を 伸ばそう と して いました
　watasi no o tō san mo yoku sinchō nobasō to site imasita... tsurai koto ga aru to o tō san wa itsumo sinchō o nobasō to site imasita
　the father of me, too, often went to increase his height... whenever something bad/tough happened, (the) father always went to increase his height...

In the first occurance (私 の お 父 さん) it specifically says "my (私 の) father", but in the second it doesn't use a personal pronoun and simply says お 父 さん. お/ご, just like the word "the", is not a literal replacement for "my/your/his/their" etc — we still have to somehow know "whose" father it is, whether through context or explicit statements.

お 父 さん can mean both "my father", "your/their father" and in general "Father" (as in mom calling dad "Dad" instead of his actual name, when speaking to the kids), depending on the sentence. For example, the title of a manga where a guy who falls in love with someone's dad, is called お 父 さん を 僕 に ください！ (o tō san o boku ni kudasai), which translates to "Give me your dad!".

In closing for this section, further examples:

　[11]あっち の お 店 に は りんご ラーメン！？
　acchi no o mise ni wa ringo rāmen!?
　in the shop over there is apple ramen?!

　お 忙しい ところ 恐れ 入り ます が
　o isogasī tokoro osore iri masu ga
　"(I) fear (I'm) entering (when you're) in the busy season"
(or some other such translation — お 忙しい ところ means "thank you for your time" but is said when you enter a place/situation instead of leave it; it can be ended with many different things, 恐れ 入り ます が above is just one example of an ending. if something like "in your busy situation" feels like a better translation, remember usage ② of the word "the"!)

　[7]　短篇 集「晩年」の 校正。この 短篇 集 で お 仕舞い に なる の で は ない かしら と、ふ と 思う。
　tanpen shū "ban nen" no kōsē. kono tanpen shū de o simai ni naru no de wa nai kasira to, fu to omou.
　"short story collection 'twilight years's proofreading. huh, won't it be the end with this short story collection, i suddenly think.
(he's a suicidal writer talking about this being his last work before he kills himself)

　[8] 先生 は お 酒 を 召し 上がり ます か
　sensē wa o sake o mesi agari masu ka
　"teacher, do (you) drink the alcohol?"
(= usage ①, same as "creature of the night")

　[9]君 は、いつ で も 私 を 信じた。私 も 君 を、欺かなかった。…　暗い 疑惑 の 雲 を、お 互い 胸 に 宿した こと は 無かった
　kimi wa, itsu de mo watasi o sinjita. watasi mo kimi o, azamukanakatta. ... kurai giwaku no kumo o, o tagai mune ni yadosita koto wa nakatta
　you always trusted me. i didn't deceive you. ... the chests of each other didn't house dark clouds of mistrust.
("the chests of each other" = "our/their own chests", usage ③)



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Part 2: お/ご With Verbs

There's a polite form of speaking where you say "お (noun/nounified verb) (verb)" or "ご (Chinese noun) (verb)". This usage is commonly said to be the same as #1, in that it marks that we're implicitly talking about someone else ("I welcome you home! I hope you sleep tight!")[3]. I personally think that it's exactly the same usage as in part 1 above, meaning the same as ④ and ③ above, in that it means the kind of "the" that refers to a certain person's thing (usually translating to "yours", "my"):

　お 座り ください
　o suwari kudasai
　the sit give-me/do-good
(a teacher telling a student to sit down)

Here, we might as well word the translation as "(please) give me your sit" or "be good, do the sit". くださる/くれる mean "do good (by doing x)" or "give (me x)". 座り is the verb 座る "become sitting" turned into a noun ("座り a sit / the action of becoming sitting").

ご is exactly the same, as in:

　ご 覧 ください
　go ran kudasai
　the view give-me/do-good
(translating to "please take a look!"; "give this spot your attention" etc)

Viewing other examples, we can see how お/ご is still the same usage as "the":

　痛み など の 異常 を 感じた とき は すぐ に ご 使用 を 中止 して ください
　itami nado no ijō o kanjita toki wa sugu ni go siyō o chūsi site kudasai
　if you feel an unusual pain or something, please stop the usage (of this product) immediately.
(③: "stop your usage" makes just as much sense as "stop the usage". from product packaging for shoe inserts.)

　[9]「たくさん の 人 を 殺した の か。」
　「はい、はじめ は 王 様 の 妹 婿 さま を。それ から、御 自身 の お 世嗣 を。それ から、妹 さま を… … …人 を、信 ずる 事 が 出来ぬ、と いう の です。この ごろ は、臣下 の 心 を も、お 疑い に なり…」
　"takusan no hito o korosita no ka."
　"hai, hajime wa ō sama no imōto muko sama o. sore kara, go jisin no o yotsugi o. sore kara, imōto sama o... ... ...hito o, sin zuru koto ga dekinu, to iu no desu. kono goro wa, sinka no kokoro o mo, o utagai ni nari..."
　"so, killed a lotta people."
　"indeed; first Mr. King's younger sister('s) husband. from there, the heir of the (king him)self. from there, Ms. Little Sister... ... ...it's a matter of being unable to trust people. recently, servants' hearts too become in the doubt."
(③, ④; お 疑い に なり is ③ as "in his (= the king's) doubt" makes sense. This is about how a king went crazy with mistrust and started killing everyone around him.)

　節 電 の ため：暖房 便座 の ふた は、使用 後 閉じて ください。ご 理解 と ご 協力 を お 願い いたし ます。
　setsu den no tame: danbō benza no futa wa, siyō go tojite kudasai. go rikai to go kyōryoku o o negai itasi masu.
　For energy conservation: After using (the) toilet seat warming (function), please close (the) lid. the understanding and the cooperation, (we're) making the wish.
(③: "our wish is for your understanding and your cooperation". This was a poster seen in the school bathroom at Miyagi University of Education.)


Usage:

This the usage in various common phrases such as:

• お 帰り なさい "welcome back"
• お 休み なさい "sleep tight"
• お 願い し ます "thanks for working/putting up with me", "please!"
• お 邪魔 し ます "thanks for having me"
• お めでとう ござい ます "i'm happy for you / congratulations!"
• お 目 に かかる "meet" (literally more like "to hang/start to be in the view of someone"...)
• ご 免 なさい "sorry!"
• ご 覧 ください "take a look!"
• ご 注意 ください "watch out!"
and so on.

Generally speaking you may hear this usage of お/ご from parents or teachers speaking to children, pet owners speaking to their pets, rich mistresses in fiction, etc. You may see it on signs from businesses, such as "please don't make a mess in the bathroom thanks".


First, an explanation of some of the verbs commonly used with this お/ご:

• する, ずる, いたす, and なさる (なさい) are commonly said to mean "do". They just make whatever we're talking about into a verb, as in "Google –> googling", and in reality they sometimes mean "is, become" depending on what exactly we're talking about. There's some usage/nuance differences between them all but that's irrelevant to the subject of this book.

• かかる means "start" (as in "start to walk, start a phone call") or "hang" (as in "hang up a photo"). It can be used in polite speech to mean something similar to する/いたす/なさる, as in お 目 に かかる mentioned above.

• くださる (ください) and くれる mean "be nice/good (and do x)", but are commonly explained in dictionaries as meaning "please" or "hand down". The usage of ください/くれる will be explained in another book.

　[] 収穫 した お 野菜 を 使って、食育 や お 泊り 保育 で 食べる 夕食 を 作ります
　しゅうかく した お やさい を つかって、しょくいく や お とまり ほいく で たべる ゆうしょく を つくります
　using the harvested vegetables, food education and (the) sleepover day, (we'll) make the dinner (we'll) eat
(= "using their own harvested vegetables, their own sleepover day"; usage ③. it's a daycare/kindergarten talking about going to a farm to pick vegetables)



Summary:
The Japanese お/ご (御) seems to be equivalent to the Indo-European "the", which helps explain why Japanese can so commonly not use personal pronouns.

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Sources cited...
[1] はらだ. 2018. カラーレシピ（上）. 新書館.

[2]Palahniuk, C. (2015). Faito Kurabu [Fight Club] (M. Ikeda, Trans.). Tokyo: Hayakawa Publishing, Inc.)

[3] Aston, W. G. (1888). A Grammar of the Japanese Spoken Language. Yokohama: (()).

[4] スーパー大辞林.

[5] Mushishi anime.

[6] http://www.zenkaren.net/_1100/_1102

[7] https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/1589_18111.html

[8] http://www.bunka.go.jp/seisaku/bunkashingikai/sokai/sokai_6/pdf/keigo_tousin.pdf

[9] https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000035/files/1567_14913.html

[10] http://www.yurikagoyochien.jp/

[11] aomori video

[12] zetubou vol1