Reasons for stroke order change

[Hofmann]

Some might know that stroke orders were changed to suit horizontal writing, where the last stroke of each character was placed closer to the starting point of the next character.

方 has two standard stroke orders, one with 丿 last and one with the hook last. Originally the character had a hook last, but it was changed to 丿 last. Doing so places the end of the character even further from the beginning of the next character when writing horizontally. From this, one can hypothesise that horizontal writing was not the only reason for changing the stroke order. Does anyone have ideas about why the stroke order for 方 was changed?

Edit: The stroke order is this way. That's it.

Edited December 9, 2008 at 06:12 AM by Hofmann

[HashiriKata]

Does anyone have ideas about why the stroke order for 方 was changed?

I don't have an answer, but just want to say that I was shocked the first time I saw the character 本 written as 大 followed by 十 (by a mainland Chinese language teacher). How popular is this way of writing? Note that the 本 written as 大 followed by 十 would not facilitate the horizontal writing Hofmann mentioned above.

[Hofmann]

本 written that way was a popular calligraphic variant for a long time. It's not the PRC standard.

[HashiriKata]

From what you've shown, and with reference to the horizontal writing, it seems likely that this "大 plus 十" style is actually the older form of the two.

[Hofmann]

I didn't show earlier examples in my previous image. I'm pretty sure the one with one vertical stroke is older. Etymology.

[roddy]

this might help.

在1997年4月7日，国家语委和中华人民共和国新闻出版署发出了关于发布《现代汉语通用字笔顺规范》的联合通知，要求就7000个通用字的笔顺进行规范。他们在编写小学语文教材时，就按照规范要求更正了“方”字的笔顺。钱先生说，方字的笔顺同“力”、“刀”等一样，最后一笔应该是“撇”。如写“方”字时，钩上来以后，正好写下来最后一撇，这也符合汉字书法书写的艺术规律。

I write both 方 and 万 the wrong way, it seems. Fortunately my computer types them just fine.

[Hofmann]

Whoa. It looks like Wiktionary got it wrong. The nerve! Well, it happens.

[Cowboy]

It doesn't matter if your stroke order is right or not.A lot of Chinese people write in different stroke orders according to their habits.

[leosmith]

It doesn't matter if your stroke order is right or not.A lot of Chinese people write in different stroke orders according to their habits.

If your goal is to have legible handwriting, even when you're not at your best, I disagree.

[david808]

Arch Chinese got it right:D

[renzhe]

If your goal is to have legible handwriting, even when you're not at your best, I disagree.

In principle, you're right.

But I don't think that ultimate strictness is always necessary.

I've struggled for years with the character 女. However hard I tried, it always looked like crap. I've decided to write it incorrectly, starting with the horizontal stroke, and now it looks much better.

I can live with that.

[Danmairen]

I've struggled for years with the character 女. However hard I tried, it always looked like crap. I've decided to write it incorrectly, starting with the horizontal stroke, and now it looks much better.

I hear you loud and clear on that one, some people make it look so good and mine can just destroy the whole page.

However, other characters with more strokes that I writes allot like 我 and 你. I tend to write really fast and they look more like doodles than the actual characters, but because I use the right stroke order, they look like the same doodles as when other people are writing them

Rune

[nipponman]

Proper stroke order is NOT necessary in order to write legibly. I write with Japanese stroke order rules (the general ones, nothing specific) and my chinese friends understood my writing fine.

[meah*]

Another interesting example is「出」which is written with the 丨first and then the rest, according to the Taiwanese standard. There are several other characters that are written differently on the mainland, Taiwan and in Hong Kong, for example: 飛, 垂, 我, 耳 and so on...

In my experience, stroke order is very important. It helps you to write faster and also reinforces your memory of different components of characters. But sure, lots of people (Chinese as well as foreigners) don't care when writing, or don't know they write incorrectly (one of my teachers write「挺」扌then 廴 and lastly 壬.

[Hofmann]

Heh...thread revived. A lot of stuff I wrote in 2008 regarding stroke order was just plain wrong. It was because I, among many others, too quickly believed some guy's speculations on a Wikipedia article. The article has been edited to reflect current information.