-oru as honorific AND humble?

[jonny-mt]

Quick keigo-ish question.

So most of us are familiar with おる, the humble version of いる. I was going through the Asahi Shinbun's site today when I found an article with a strange sentence in it:

曽我さんがかわいそうだということは大統領もわかってお り、同情している

This is a quote from a Mr. Green of the National Security Council's Asian Bureau. Unless I am highly mistaken, this sentence translates roughly into "The President understands how hard this is for Soga-san, and he sympathizes." I asked a friend sitting nearby who speaks Japanese at about my level why Green would use 'おる' to refer to the President if it was for humble use, and he responded after some hesitation that it can also be used as an honorific. This brings me to two questions:

1) Is this true? Can おる be used for both humbling oneself and honoring another? When do I choose it over いらっしゃる?
2) Since this quote is, of course, a translation, why would one use 〜おる in the first part of the sentence and 〜いる in the second?

Thanks in advance for the help

[Bekkichan]

敬語恐いなぁ

I admit I don't have the experience that a lot of folks here have, but from what I do know, おる can be used as either a humble or a neutral-polite term. The neutral-polite is probably what you were seeing in the article, since it was referring to a third party.

Some examples:

お待ちしております。 - I'll be waiting. (humble, probably talking to a superior; this seems to be the most familiar form)

今階は図書館になっております。 - This floor has been turned into a library. (referring to an inanimate object, 〜ておる is used in place of 〜ている, which refers to living things. 〜ておる can also be used as a neutral but polite form when referring to a third party, someone you don't necessarily have to speak honorifically about because they're not right there in front of you.)

I would say that わかっており was used in the article instead of わかっていて because newspapers and other written media tend to prefer using verb stems instead of gerunds, which are more colloquial and spoken-style. And I could be wrong, but I don't think the stem of いる can stand on its own (that or it just doesn't make sense on its own), which would explain why they used おり instead.

I hope that made sense. If anyone sees something I got wrong, please do correct me!

[jonny-mt]

Hmm. Makes sense to me...thanks!