Simplification of 夠 (gǒu)

[yakeyglee]

The simplification of the character 夠 (gǒu) is peculiar in that the only change made was the positioning of the components, swapping the left for the right (够). What was the reasoning behind this?

[jbradfor]

I believe it's actually 4th tone, not 3rd.

But I have no idea. Neither side (句 nor 多) is really close to be a phonetic. And neither side is really a radical.

[roddy]

Having read half of this, it seems maybe both existed as variants, and it wasn't so much as simplification as a standardization on one of the two. But as I say, only read half . . .

[renzhe]

Both characters are in Kangxi, right next to each other. It is a case of standardising on two different existing variants of the same character. See also 泪／淚 and others.

This should not be confused with the cases where the simplification mapped a complex character to an existing simpler one, thus adding an additional meaning to a simpler character, such as 後->后. Both versions of 够 were in use long before the simplification process.

But I have no idea. Neither side (句 nor 多) is really close to be a phonetic.

You're not thinking hard enough ;) 句 is the phonetic element here, and it is often read as "gou".

http://www.xiaoma.info/pinyin.php?py=gou&fpy=gou

The radical is actually 夕. Surprised me too!

[jbradfor]

Good points, I wasn't thinking hard enough. Don't act so surprised.

夠 does, then, seem to make more sense, following the more-common pattern of radical-left-phonetic-right.

[aristotle1990]

The radical is actually 夕. Surprised me too!

These guys say it's 多 though, which would make more sense.

[skylee]

Both characters are in Kangxi, right next to each other. It is a case of standardising on two different existing variants of the same character.

This makes sense.

[Glenn]

Ha, I was about to ask about 鄰/隣, then I saw that simplified uses 邻. I still find it strange, though. Both are listed at nciku for the traditional variants, but then again the menu at the top is in Japanese for some reason (is that just me?). At any rate, I just saw this in 康熙字典: 【正字通】本作鄰，隸作隣。今通作鄰。Well, that last part is true for Chinese, but not Japanese (uses 隷書). The radical here is easier to figure out.

[heifeng]

This probably has the same info that roddy posted, but here are some links~ about standardizing variant characters:

http://www.china-language.gov.cn/wenziguifan/managed/003.htm

...which occured before (this round of) standardization

here,here

[tooironic]

Well Wenlin says: From 句 jù phonetic and 多 (duō) 'much', sometimes in reverse order. (We call 够 the "simple" form and 夠 the "full" form, only because 够 is in the simple-form GB standard and 夠 is in the full-form Big5 standard.)

[skylee]

I think the full form is 彀 ... It is one of those words like 臺, 祇 and 纔.