Optional Horizontal Stroke in 肯德 (KENDALL in Chinese Calligraphy)

[SokudoJutsu]

It actually looks more beautiful without the extra stroke.

Is that character at 3:07 from one of your videos?

[artvirtue]

@SokudoJutsu The ancient Chinese calligraphers preferred to write with extra or omitted strokes compared with today's standardized characters, such as an omitted 橫 in 德 and an extra 橫 in 澤.

The 德 at 3:07 was written for Texas Instruments ( 德州儀器 ) in 2008 on a premounted scroll with dragon print.

[001Asoer]

Ironic. At least 9 out of 10 instances of that grapheme is 徳, yet at least 9 out of 10 Chinese people think it is wrong.

[artvirtue]

@001Asoer There are many situations like this. For example, the dot in 鬼 was usually omitted in the ancient time and originally there were two extra strokes in the left part of 廢.

[001Asoer]

@artvirtue Indeed. It seems that beds in large seal script usually evolve to something like 爿 or 疒 in small seal script, but 廢 was an exception. Perhaps this was because of 說文解字, which used 广.

In any case, 疒+业+弓+攵 (I don't think I can type it.) seems to be most popular. I'm sure even few people have seen it.

[artvirtue]

@001Asoer Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

My high school teacher, who encouraged and enlightened me in calligraphy, was a renowned etymologist and calligrapher in Taiwan. Luckily, he often mentioned many exceptions like this in class. Unluckily, I was too young and most of my classmates and I did not pay enough attentions.

Even today, I have pressures that some Chinese school teachers (who do not practice calligraphy) might question me why I write with omitted & extra strokes.

[jcsf9]

The 徳 variant occurs more frequently in modern Japanese.

[artvirtue]

@jcsf9 Thank you for your sharing and typing 徳.

[cristobelle56]

thank you for sharing... lovely character "de". Wonder why some horizontal strokes are omitted in ancient writings ? Best,

[artvirtue]

@cristobelle56 Thank you. The reasons are partially due to evolutions of Chinese characters (including calligraphy styles) - we may also wonder in many situations why certain horizontal strokes are added as "extra" strokes and some strokes are "omitted."