<p>dROOze is correct but I want to add a cautionary remark. The modern form of the characters originated from a simplification and modification of 隸書, which is why to this day we speak about character forms that experienced <a href="https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%9A%B8%E8%AE%8A" rel="nofollow noreferrer">隸變</a>. When 楷書 evolved from 隸書, further simplifications occurred that led to even more components becoming indistinguishable. Over the next millennia, these fused components—like 肉, 舟, 丹 and 月 becoming 月 when used as a component—irked nitpickers who argued that these distinctions should not be lost. Consequently, the authors of the Tang dynasty 《五經文字》, referring back to the Han dynasty 《說文解字》, introduced tiny calligraphic markers to distinguish the four different origins of what had come to be written indistinguishably as 月: one form has two horizontals that connect to the verticals on both sides, one form has two shorter horizontals that connect to the left but not to the right vertical, one form looks like the 冫 Ice radical, one form uses two dots on top of each other, and one has a vertical over a horizontal stroke, which is where we get the two code points for 青 and 靑 from. Over the centuries, these efforts were picked up by various dictionaries, not least in 1715 by the influential 《康熙字典》 which also promoted other hyper-corrected forms. Apparently there were different schemes with different ideas how to symbolize each of the origins of the component, which complicates things further.</p>
<p>Now when you look up the character <a href="https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%89%8D" rel="nofollow noreferrer">zdic.net 前</a> in <a href="https://www.kangxizidian.com/v1/index.php?page=140#gv" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Kangxi</a>, you'll see they chose to write the component with two stacked dots, indicating (in their system) that that component was originally 舟. But they also remark that the earlier, more complete, more differentiated way to write 前 was (or would be if we mechanically transform Seal or Clerical script into their modern equivalent) 歬 or ; this then tells us that the top component originates from 止—and not from 艸 as it does in some other characters. No differentiation is offered for the top component.</p>
<p>To cut this already way-too-long comment short, I regard the efforts to re-instate, as it were, the Seal forms of the 《說文解字》 in 楷書 as maybe quaint, but ultimately failed. This is also true for quite a number of other components like the 舌 found e.g. in 活, for which 《說文解字》 remarks: 从水聲, IOW this is not originally 舌 but  with which it later merged. To the credit of the authors of the 《康熙字典》, they do distinguish 舌 as 干+口 from the modern form of  which they write as 千+口—but who follows them in the modern day? Nobody does, nitpickers always only pick on the 月 component.</p>
<p>Needless to say that, given the plethora of components that have merged over the course of history, one would have to come up with quite a few teeny distinctions similar to the ones discussed above. Most of the associations between the distinction and the original forms will be completely arbitrary and too hard to learn to gain any prevalence. And I have not even mentioned the ugly fact that the Seal characters in the 《說文解字》 are not 100% reliable which is borne out by the fact that for some characters 《說文解字》 is the only source that shows a particular way of writing whereas all other sources have different forms.</p>
<p>In short, don't worry, write 月 as 月 and concern yourself with more important stuff.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T19:14:27.097Z
I'm not sure if this is sound advice. *Most of the associations between the distinction and the original forms will be completely arbitrary and too hard to learn to gain any prevalence* is only true for people who are already fluent in the language, and such writing standards aren't for this category of people. But there are always an influx of new learners, and I, for one, would like to stop seeing inane questions like "why is *liver/leg/buttocks written with a moon*?".
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T19:19:03.290Z
隸變 is a piece of history, but deliberately *emulating it*, and all those other stroke-cutting techniques used by so-called famous calligraphers to make writing "look aesthetically pleasing" doesn't help someone learn the writing system at all. Just like learning the rules of driving, fluent people and experts taking shortcuts does not mean it should be officially ordained; and most people not perfectly obeying driving rules, or the rules not being able to prevent 100% of car crashes, does not mean you should ignore their rigidity while you are learning to drive.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T19:46:25.503Z
I do completely agree with your point that the learner *should know* that 肉, 舟, 丹, 月 all went into becoming modern 月, and that it's not 舌 what is on the right hand side of 活. But these distinctions have been lost—that's a fait accompli—in the appearance of the chrs. and it makes little sense IMO to torture students with having to memorize the various ways of modifying 月.—Other than that I don't think I advocated for emulating 隸變.
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T19:50:05.910Z
The distinctions have not been *lost*, otherwise the ROC wouldn't publish such a standard. A truly lost distinction is completely inexplicable. What you really mean is, many fluent adults these days don't make the distinction - but that's a product of an education system. There's no need at all to artificially engineer the loss of these distinctions, or to perpetuate it to next generations.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T20:37:21.677Z
OMG *to artificially engineer the loss of these distinctions* you sound like Mr Magoo on a duck hunt. Look, as you say, *fluent adults these days don't make the distinction* and **they haven't cared since long before the Tang dynasty** ie for over 1000yrs. They still don't care and nobody does except for some bean-counters and ppl like me who is for some reason into this kind of things. I wouldn't trust myself to replicate the 4 kinds of 月 and acc to my research it's very hard to find a font that does reliably.
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T20:38:26.123Z
What about 䒑 then, should I write that one differently depending on whether it's from 止 or 艸 or sth else?
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T20:52:42.483Z
I'm not at all asserting what one *should or shouldn't do*. What I am saying is, if a government or writing standard decides to do the research and make the distinction due to reasons grounded in the language, it is nobody's business to say that the distinction is outdated, superfluous, or abnormal. I really, really don't care what people have been doing for 1,000 years, especially if what they've been doing is confusing and doesn't help anyone learn the writing system.
dROOOze
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T21:17:30.420Z
Well it does matter when it comes to learners like the OP of this thread and I do feel I can comment on that
John Frazer
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-12T11:38:57.917Z
2024-12-12T19:05:46.780Z
2024-12-12T19:05:46.780Z
John Frazer
<ul>
<li>The right side of 「明」 is 「月」 (<em>moon</em>).</li>
<li>The right side of 「胡」 is not 「月」 - it is 「肉」 (<em>flesh, meat</em>). 「湖」 (<em>lake</em>) is comprised of semantic 「水・氵」 (<em>water</em>) and phonetic 「胡」, so in 「湖」, the right side is written as in 「胡」.</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>In ROC (Taiwan), 「肉」 as a component is published and written differently from 「月」, whereas the PRC doesn't distinguish them. Compare:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>「肝」 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)" rel="noreferrer">Baxter-Sagart OC</a>: <strong>/*s.kˤa[r]/</strong>, <em>liver</em>), from semantic 「肉」 (<em>flesh</em>) and phonetic 「干」 (<strong>/*[k]ˁar/</strong>, <strong>/*kˁa[r]/</strong>):</p>
<p><kbd>ROC (Taiwan)<br><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/rEoiq0kZs.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/rEoiq0kZs.png" alt="肝" /></a><br>　</kbd><kbd>PRC<br><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/oE7mrcA4s.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/oE7mrcA4s.png" alt="肝" /></a><br>　</kbd></p>
</li>
<li><p>「育」 (<strong>/*m-quk/</strong>, <em>to breed and raise children</em>), from semantic <a href="http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=22440" rel="noreferrer">「」</a> (<a href="http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=45" rel="noreferrer"><em>child</em>, 「子」</a> written upside-down to emphasise the act of being born) and phonetic 「肉」 (<strong>/*k.nuk/</strong>):</p>
<p><kbd>ROC<br><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/6HjUDwtBs.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/6HjUDwtBs.png" alt="育" /></a><br>　</kbd><kbd>PRC<br><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/6HwwXm6Bs.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/6HwwXm6Bs.png" alt="育" /></a><br>　</kbd></p>
</li>
<li><p>「胡」 (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewlap" rel="noreferrer"><em>dewlap</em></a> &gt; <em>beard</em>, now written as 「鬍」), from semantic 「肉」 (<em>flesh</em>) and phonetic 「古」:</p>
<p><kbd>ROC<br><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/oTLxhDGAs.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/oTLxhDGAs.png" alt="胡" /></a><br>　</kbd><kbd>PRC<br><a href="https://i.sstatic.net/26KrfnoMs.png" rel="noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/26KrfnoMs.png" alt="胡" /></a><br>　</kbd></p>
</li>
</ul>
<hr />
<p>As for finding out why a character is written as it is in the ROC, I personally just check <a href="https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/" rel="noreferrer">教育部異體字字典</a> (<em>ROC Department of Education's Dictionary of Variant Characters</em>, henceforth DVC). If you look up its entry on <a href="https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=35920&amp;q=1" rel="noreferrer">「胡」</a>，</p>
<blockquote>
<p><strong>字樣說明</strong></p>
<p>此字《說文解字》篆形作「...」，牛頷垂也。从肉，古聲。。。。。。</p>
<p><strong>Explanation of this character's appearance</strong></p>
<p>This character is written as ...<sup>1</sup> in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi" rel="noreferrer">Shuōwén Jiězì</a>'s <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script" rel="noreferrer">seal script</a> form, and is defined there as <em>the dewlap of a cow</em>, from semantic 「肉」 and phonetic 「古」...</p>
<p><sub><sup>1</sup> <a href="https://szsw.bnu.edu.cn/book/org-page.action?page=89&amp;num=1&amp;zi=%E8%83%A1" rel="noreferrer">https://szsw.bnu.edu.cn/book/org-page.action?page=89&amp;num=1&amp;zi=%E8%83%A1</a></sub></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Once you check what DVC explains this character is comprised of, you can then check the individual components in DVC (here, <a href="https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=35685&amp;q=1" rel="noreferrer">「肉」</a> and <a href="https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=5376&amp;q=1" rel="noreferrer">「古」</a>) to see how the ROC recommends you to write and publish them.</p>
<p>Looking up the individual components in DVC is unnecessary in the case of 「胡」, as the entry itself already contains full explanation of how you should write 「古」 and 「肉」, but other entries may not be this detailed.</p>

CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-10T06:50:29.307Z
This is great to learn about, thanks a lot.
fluter
CC BY-SA 4.0
2024-12-10T04:21:41.370Z
2024-12-10T04:57:40.157Z
2024-12-10T04:57:40.157Z
dROOOze
<p>It looks like if <code>月</code> is used as a single character, the two strokes inside are two heng(橫), but when it is used as a component, I see inconsistence exists, sometimes it is two heng and more parallel, but some times it looks like a dian(點) and a tiao(挑), which are not in parallel. An example <a href="https://i.sstatic.net/wiBUFRyY.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer"><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/wiBUFRyY.png" alt="below" /></a>. Both are on the right side of the character, but they have different shapes. Is there any rules I should apply here? BTW I'm talking about traditional Chinese seen in Taiwan, because I notice in Simplified Chinese  they look the same.</p>

<handwriting><strokes>
the right strokes for 月(yue)
# the right strokes for 月(yue)

(Asked by: username_0 on 2024-12-10)

It looks like if `月` is used as a single character, the two strokes inside are two heng(橫), but when it is used as a component, I see inconsistence exists, sometimes it is two heng and more parallel, but some times it looks like a dian(點) and a tiao(挑), which are not in parallel. An example [![below](https://i.sstatic.net/wiBUFRyY.png)](https://i.sstatic.net/wiBUFRyY.png). Both are on the right side of the character, but they have different shapes. Is there any rules I should apply here? BTW I'm talking about traditional Chinese seen in Taiwan, because I notice in Simplified Chinese they look the same.

**Tags:** handwriting, strokes


---

## 2 answers

### Answer by username_2 on 2024-12-10. Score: 7 | Accepted answer

* The right side of 「明」 is 「月」 (*moon*).
* The right side of 「胡」 is not 「月」 - it is 「肉」 (*flesh, meat*). 「湖」 (*lake*) is comprised of semantic 「水・氵」 (*water*) and phonetic 「胡」, so in 「湖」, the right side is written as in 「胡」.

---

In ROC (Taiwan), 「肉」 as a component is published and written differently from 「月」, whereas the PRC doesn't distinguish them. Compare:

* 「肝」 ([Baxter-Sagart OC](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reconstructions_of_Old_Chinese#Baxter%E2%80%93Sagart_(2014)): **/\*s.kˤa[r]/**, *liver*), from semantic 「肉」 (*flesh*) and phonetic 「干」 (**/\*[k]ˁar/**, **/\*kˁa[r]/**):

  `ROC (Taiwan)  
  ![肝](https://i.sstatic.net/rEoiq0kZs.png)``PRC  
  ![肝](https://i.sstatic.net/oE7mrcA4s.png)`
* 「育」 (**/\*m-quk/**, *to breed and raise children*), from semantic [「」](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=22440) ([*child*, 「子」](http://xiaoxue.iis.sinica.edu.tw/yanbian?kaiOrder=45) written upside-down to emphasise the act of being born) and phonetic 「肉」 (**/\*k.nuk/**):

  `ROC  
  ![育](https://i.sstatic.net/6HjUDwtBs.png)``PRC  
  ![育](https://i.sstatic.net/6HwwXm6Bs.png)`
* 「胡」 ([*dewlap*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dewlap) > *beard*, now written as 「鬍」), from semantic 「肉」 (*flesh*) and phonetic 「古」:

  `ROC  
  ![胡](https://i.sstatic.net/oTLxhDGAs.png)``PRC  
  ![胡](https://i.sstatic.net/26KrfnoMs.png)`

---

As for finding out why a character is written as it is in the ROC, I personally just check [教育部異體字字典](https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/) (*ROC Department of Education's Dictionary of Variant Characters*, henceforth DVC). If you look up its entry on [「胡」](https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=35920&q=1)，

> **字樣說明**
>
> 此字《說文解字》篆形作「...」，牛頷垂也。从肉，古聲。。。。。。
>
> **Explanation of this character's appearance**
>
> This character is written as ...1 in [Shuōwén Jiězì](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuowen_Jiezi)'s [seal script](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_seal_script) form, and is defined there as *the dewlap of a cow*, from semantic 「肉」 and phonetic 「古」...
>
> 1 <https://szsw.bnu.edu.cn/book/org-page.action?page=89&num=1&zi=%E8%83%A1>

Once you check what DVC explains this character is comprised of, you can then check the individual components in DVC (here, [「肉」](https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=35685&q=1) and [「古」](https://dict.variants.moe.edu.tw/dictView.jsp?ID=5376&q=1)) to see how the ROC recommends you to write and publish them.

Looking up the individual components in DVC is unnecessary in the case of 「胡」, as the entry itself already contains full explanation of how you should write 「古」 and 「肉」, but other entries may not be this detailed.

> **Comments:**
> **username_0**: This is great to learn about, thanks a lot.  

---

### Answer by username_1 on 2024-12-12. Score: 2

dROOze is correct but I want to add a cautionary remark. The modern form of the characters originated from a simplification and modification of 隸書, which is why to this day we speak about character forms that experienced [隸變](https://zh.wikipedia.org/zh-tw/%E9%9A%B8%E8%AE%8A). When 楷書 evolved from 隸書, further simplifications occurred that led to even more components becoming indistinguishable. Over the next millennia, these fused components—like 肉, 舟, 丹 and 月 becoming 月 when used as a component—irked nitpickers who argued that these distinctions should not be lost. Consequently, the authors of the Tang dynasty 《五經文字》, referring back to the Han dynasty 《說文解字》, introduced tiny calligraphic markers to distinguish the four different origins of what had come to be written indistinguishably as 月: one form has two horizontals that connect to the verticals on both sides, one form has two shorter horizontals that connect to the left but not to the right vertical, one form looks like the 冫 Ice radical, one form uses two dots on top of each other, and one has a vertical over a horizontal stroke, which is where we get the two code points for 青 and 靑 from. Over the centuries, these efforts were picked up by various dictionaries, not least in 1715 by the influential 《康熙字典》 which also promoted other hyper-corrected forms. Apparently there were different schemes with different ideas how to symbolize each of the origins of the component, which complicates things further.

Now when you look up the character [zdic.net 前](https://www.zdic.net/hans/%E5%89%8D) in [Kangxi](https://www.kangxizidian.com/v1/index.php?page=140#gv), you'll see they chose to write the component with two stacked dots, indicating (in their system) that that component was originally 舟. But they also remark that the earlier, more complete, more differentiated way to write 前 was (or would be if we mechanically transform Seal or Clerical script into their modern equivalent) 歬 or ; this then tells us that the top component originates from 止—and not from 艸 as it does in some other characters. No differentiation is offered for the top component.

To cut this already way-too-long comment short, I regard the efforts to re-instate, as it were, the Seal forms of the 《說文解字》 in 楷書 as maybe quaint, but ultimately failed. This is also true for quite a number of other components like the 舌 found e.g. in 活, for which 《說文解字》 remarks: 从水聲, IOW this is not originally 舌 but with which it later merged. To the credit of the authors of the 《康熙字典》, they do distinguish 舌 as 干+口 from the modern form of which they write as 千+口—but who follows them in the modern day? Nobody does, nitpickers always only pick on the 月 component.

Needless to say that, given the plethora of components that have merged over the course of history, one would have to come up with quite a few teeny distinctions similar to the ones discussed above. Most of the associations between the distinction and the original forms will be completely arbitrary and too hard to learn to gain any prevalence. And I have not even mentioned the ugly fact that the Seal characters in the 《說文解字》 are not 100% reliable which is borne out by the fact that for some characters 《說文解字》 is the only source that shows a particular way of writing whereas all other sources have different forms.

In short, don't worry, write 月 as 月 and concern yourself with more important stuff.

> **Comments:**
> **username_2**: I'm not sure if this is sound advice. *Most of the associations between the distinction and the original forms will be completely arbitrary and too hard to learn to gain any prevalence* is only true for people who are already fluent in the language, and such writing standards aren't for this category of people. But there are always an influx of new learners, and I, for one, would like to stop seeing inane questions like "why is *liver/leg/buttocks written with a moon*?".  
> **username_2**: 隸變 is a piece of history, but deliberately *emulating it*, and all those other stroke-cutting techniques used by so-called famous calligraphers to make writing "look aesthetically pleasing" doesn't help someone learn the writing system at all. Just like learning the rules of driving, fluent people and experts taking shortcuts does not mean it should be officially ordained; and most people not perfectly obeying driving rules, or the rules not being able to prevent 100% of car crashes, does not mean you should ignore their rigidity while you are learning to drive.  
> **username_1**: I do completely agree with your point that the learner *should know* that 肉, 舟, 丹, 月 all went into becoming modern 月, and that it's not 舌 what is on the right hand side of 活. But these distinctions have been lost—that's a fait accompli—in the appearance of the chrs. and it makes little sense IMO to torture students with having to memorize the various ways of modifying 月.—Other than that I don't think I advocated for emulating 隸變.  
> **username_2**: The distinctions have not been *lost*, otherwise the ROC wouldn't publish such a standard. A truly lost distinction is completely inexplicable. What you really mean is, many fluent adults these days don't make the distinction - but that's a product of an education system. There's no need at all to artificially engineer the loss of these distinctions, or to perpetuate it to next generations.  
> **username_1**: OMG *to artificially engineer the loss of these distinctions* you sound like Mr Magoo on a duck hunt. Look, as you say, *fluent adults these days don't make the distinction* and **they haven't cared since long before the Tang dynasty** ie for over 1000yrs. They still don't care and nobody does except for some bean-counters and ppl like me who is for some reason into this kind of things. I wouldn't trust myself to replicate the 4 kinds of 月 and acc to my research it's very hard to find a font that does reliably.  
> **username_1**: What about 䒑 then, should I write that one differently depending on whether it's from 止 or 艸 or sth else?  
> **username_2**: I'm not at all asserting what one *should or shouldn't do*. What I am saying is, if a government or writing standard decides to do the research and make the distinction due to reasons grounded in the language, it is nobody's business to say that the distinction is outdated, superfluous, or abnormal. I really, really don't care what people have been doing for 1,000 years, especially if what they've been doing is confusing and doesn't help anyone learn the writing system.  
> **username_1**: Well it does matter when it comes to learners like the OP of this thread and I do feel I can comment on that  

---

