15-07-2026, 07:14 AM
(This post was last modified: 15-07-2026, 07:29 AM by Jorge_Stolfi.)
(14-07-2026, 11:29 PM)rikforto wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.I'm not sure what exemplars you're looking at, but in the ones I see it definitely looks like 撇 (the down left stroke) crosses 横 (the horizontal one) to me.
Indeed, even in Clerical Script there is always a "head" protruding above the horizontal line. But it can be quite short, about as long as one stroke-width.
If those are indeed Chinese characters, note that they were copied by an Author who almost certainly never studied Chinese writing (so much so that he got them upside-down) and then re-copied by a Scribe who had never seen Chinese writing before. Thus it would be understandable if he omitted the "head".
The middle horizontal stroke of capital letters A, E, H often crosses the legs and sticks out on the sides; but a copyist would not consider those protrusions significant, and would not feel obliged to reproduce them.
Quote:No dictionary I've checked wants to go to bat for three strokes in the order implied by what's in the VMS,
What do you mean? My dictionary says 大 is three strokes, and that is how I have learned to draw it:
The VMS symbol, whatever it is, is supposed to be three brush strokes too. (Although the outline of this brushed symbol was drawn by the Scribe with a sharp quill, in brown ink, and then he or someone else filled that outline with rusty-red paint.)
All the best, --stolfi
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