體's variants?

[inbtw33n]

Hi, I wasn't sure if this is an error on Pleco's system or Pleco just shows a variant of 體, but I thought I should make sure here first.

I was studying HSK flashcards posted in the flashcards section and when 身體 and its simplified version came out, I thought 體 looked kind of weird. I'm unable to find the Pleco STROKE ORDER version of it anywhere on the web. I tried using yellowdictionary, learnchineseez, some Korean Hanja apps, they all show 體 variant, which is the one I'm familiar with.

As I haven't got a picture, the best way is to describe it.
Basically the Pleco version combines stroke 3 & 4, while also making it face left rather than right (冎). I tried looking up the etymology and 冎, guǎ, is written like that but everything else is the normal separated two strokes, facing right.

ps. I tried searching up 骨 on learnchineseez and Pleco, and it shows 冎 direction, so I'm guessing there are variants to this... Someone please enlighten me -_-
Note that only stroke order appears like what I have described in Pleco.

 

[mikelove]

Hi, I wasn't sure if this is an error on Pleco's system or Pleco just shows a variant of 體, but I thought I should make sure here first.

It's a variant - mainland does it one way, HK/Taiwan do it the other, but both are perfectly valid. We do update the fonts to match your simplified/traditional character system selection, but we don't yet have the ability to do that in stroke order diagrams.

 

[feng]

Not to be a pedant (OK, I am), but since the OP was asking about a detailed issue, I thought I would offer my two cents.

In various old dictionaries 骨 and 咼，and all the characters that contain them, were written with the third and fourth strokes on the right, though nearly always a 人 was substituted for the third and fourth strokes from 玉篇 until before the Ming Dynasty. In 小篆 it was also a sort of a box on the right. I would have to go check what they were before 小篆，if that is of interest, since I don't recall.

None of the old dictionaries have a box on the left, as in the PRC form of 骨 and the PRC traditional version of 咼. In calligraphy dictionaries (listings of example characters written by calligraphers through history), published in the PRC, there is only one calligrapher before the PRC that is doing it the PRC way with the box on the left: 祝充明，a Ming Dynasty calligrapher. Don't know what he was smoking :mrgreen: