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fr:Discuter:Composition d'un sinogramme

i think there need to be an article explaining what constitute a stroke. Someone who have not taken chinese classes would probably think 口 is a 4-stroke character. (口 has only 3 strokes)--空向 22:28, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

I don't think there needs to be a seperate article. I've added a line that should help. Exploding Boy 23:18, Nov 19, 2004 (UTC)

Mention of Oracle Bones and multiple other changes

The previous version mentioned the oracle bones; the mention was not centrally relevant to stroke order, or at least its relevance was not made clear. More importantly, it contained a major misunderstanding about the oracle bones; Chin. char. were incorrectly referred to as originally having been carved, and only later written on bamboo, etc. This confuses the notions of what existed at that time vs. what survived archaeologically (extant). The description of the contents of oracle bone inscriptions was also slightly off. See the Keightley reference which I've added. Dragonbones March 16, 2005

Changes made in the March 16th 2005 revision: 1. Apparent typo; orig. "Stroke power", changed to "stroke order"

2. Error:

"Chinese characters were originally carved",

changed to

"Chinese characters are believed to have originally been brush-written on perishable materials such as bamboo or wood slats, which could then be bound together like Venetian blinds, and rolled for storage. Examples of such books have been found dating to the late Zhou dynasty. It is a common misconception that Chinese characters were originally carved; this stems from the fact that the earliest extant examples are in carved form".

Any reputable authority on sinopaleography can verify this (that it is not believed that carving characters preceded writing them); I've cited Keightley as the most prominent Western authority on this. Note that my change lengthens the explanation, on a point which is not central to stroke order. The information probably more properly belongs in the pages on Chinese characters and/or oracle bones. Perhaps it should be moved or deleted.

3. Inaccurate or misleading description:

"the so-called oracle bones, scapulomancy fortune-telling devices on which the diviner inscribed his name, the date, and two possible outcomes (see image)" changed to

"The oracle bones were animal bones, generally turtle shells and the scapulae of oxen and other animals, into which pits were dug. These pits were heated to produce cracks which were read by diviners, and the date, diviner's name, topics divined, and sometimes answers were then written on and carved into the bones (see image)."

Perhaps I've added too much information, but the key change here is that "two possible outcomes" is not necessarily correct. The topic divined was inscribed, and it might or might not be done in both positive and negative wordings of the question; alternately, more than two possible outcomes might be recorded. See the cited Keightley, as well as his still in-print ppbk version, 1985, ISBN 0520054555; and his (2000) The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China (ca. 1200 – 1045 B.C.). China Research Monograph 53, Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California – Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-070-9.

4. Inaccuracy:

"Although it would take thousands of years for uniform, defined forms for each character to appear, now, as then, characters comprise a number of strokes which must be written in a prescribed order",

changed to

"Although it would take over a thousand years for uniform, defined forms for each character to appear,..."

. The time span from the oracle bones to the standardization at the time of Qin Shihuang was roughly ONE thousand (ca. 1300 BC to 3rd century BC). Even factoring in a handful of slightly earlier bronze forms, 'thousands' is misleading.

5. Personally, I think the whole bit on history of Chinese characters is out of place here, not directly relevant to stroke order. I'm considering deleting everything from

"Chinese characters are believed to have originally been brush-written ..."

to

"Although it would take over a thousand years for uniform, defined forms for each character to appear, now, as then, ".

This would leave the focus on the topic, stroke order.

6. Added:

"Taiwan continues to use the unsimplified forms, often called traditional or regular forms."

Again, I don't think the info on who uses which form is relevant to stroke order, but if Japan and China are mentioned here, Taiwan is certainly relevant.

7. The examples for stroke order as in the article's #4 are a bit confusing. "There are some circumstances where the vertical stroke is written first, usually when the bottom-most stroke is horizontal, such as in 田 or 王." This is confusing because there are three vertical strokes. If the vertical stroke the rule is trying to refer to is the center one, it is actually written fourth, not first, in this character 田, i.e., leftmost vertical, then top horiz. and right vertical jointly, then center horiz., then center vertical, and finally lower horizontal. In which case it is first ***only in relation to*** the final stroke of the character. The same is true with 王; the vertical is only "first" in relation to the final, bottom horiz. stroke. In fact, it is the third stroke, in the order taught here in Taiwan. I refer to the Chinese orders; M4RC0 clearly felt there was a problem with these examples too. I've changed it to the following: "4. There are some circumstances where the vertical stroke is written before a horizontal, such as when the character ends in a horizontal stroke at the bottom. E.g., 上 is written 一 then | then _. " Note the careful use of the word "before" rather than "first", and the simpler example.

8. A similar problem occurred in the next rule, orig. "Vertical strokes that "cut" through a character are written last, as in 書 and 筆. " But in the first of these examples, the vertical stroke is not in fact the last stroke in the character; after it come a horizontal, followed by all of 日 at the bottom. My rewording as "Vertical strokes that "cut" through a character are written after the horizontal strokes they cut through, as in 書 and 筆. " clarifies this.

Dragonbones

Regarding oracle bones and how Chinese characters were first produced, I'd like to see the claim in the article (that characters were first written with brushes and later encarved) very well referenced. According to all sources I've seen, the reverse is true. Exploding Boy 17:42, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

Should the referencing occur in detail here on this talk page as below, and just the source (book author, name etc.) be added in the Stroke Order page in the References section at the bottom? Or should specific citations be placed within the Stroke Order page in the "(Norman, p.71)" style? Sorry, I'm new at this and don't want to screw up. Thanks in advance for your feedback! Dragonbones 08:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

“Chinese scholars believe that the writing brush (máobĭ) was already used at this period; unfortunately, the materials on which the writing brush was employed were mostly perishable, and very few examples of actual brush writing have come down to us. The bronze inscriptional script, however, preserves a style of script closely modeled on brush-writing techniques.” Norman (1988), p. 64.

The early W. Zhou figure, the Duke of Zhou, is known to have said to the Shang survivors "The fact is you are aware that ancestors of the Yin had bamboo books and codices..." (Qiu 2000, p.43). Note that bamboo books were traditionally written on with a brush and ink, which is faster and easier than carving them.

Characters are also found in the oracle bone inscriptions which depict such bamboo books as well as writing brushes -- see for example, the OB 聿 yu4 (forerunner to 筆 bi3, writing brush, and central component of 書 shu1, book) (cf. Wu, T.L., 1990, p266, or Liu (1997) p.168-9, or Zhao Cheng, p.122); another example, 冊 ce4, which depicts the bound bamboo (or wood) slat book (see Liu p.112, or Zhao Cheng, p.218). The logical conclusion is therefore that brush writing was at least contemporary with the engraved OB.

Even some of the oracle bone inscriptions themselves may have been been written with a brush onto the bone surface before being carved. Carvers would often cut all the strokes going one direction before turning the piece 90 degrees to cut the remainder. This is clearest in examples in which all the strokes going one way have been carved, and some strokes going the other way missed; I doubt carvers would have done this kind of unidirectional cutting without following an existing visual reference on the bone. Furthermore, there are some bones which still bear their ink characters, without carving: "in a small number of cases they were written with a brush dipped in ink or cinnabar" (Qiu 2000, p.60).

Dr. 裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000) mentions on p. 30 that the Neolithic-period symbols which may have a bearing on primitive Chinese writing are found in both drawn (using pigmented substances) and engraved forms. I note that it is not clear whether these are in fact forerunners of the Chinese script; the citation is relevant because these symbols, as well as painted pottery during the Neolithic period, show evidence that brushes were already being used. This, plus the relative ease of both making and employing a brush, compared to engraving on a hard surface like bone, helps to support the assumption by many scholars that brush writing was at least as early as and may well have predated the engraving of characters on the oracle bones.

The Dawenkou inscriptions of around 4500 to 2300BC, which are thought by some scholars to be ancestral to the Shang writing system, are in both incised and red pigment (presumably brush written) forms. See e.g. Woon (1987), p. 27.

I'd also like to point out that it's a bit misleading to say that the OB are *the* earliest Chin. writing; there is writing on bronzes and on pottery at least as early. “From the same period there also exist a number of inscriptions on bronze vessels of various sorts.” Norman (1988), p.58. I will make a minor edit in the article soon to reflect this; I'll add these references too, although I'm considering trimming the amount of info on OB from the Stroke Order page, as it's not centrally relevant. I'm planning on overhauling the info on the Oracle Bones page itself, as it's woefully incomplete and inaccurate.

Note that there is no hard evidence of brush-written writing which predates carving; into the Neolithic period (the symbols which are debated as to whether they constitute writing) as well as in the Shang period (with symbols mirroring the contents of the OB), both are found, and it's not unreasonable to assume the brush, being easier, predates engraving. In other words, from the earliest times, the hard evidence is that the two were contemporary. There is an additional reason to believe that the brush-written form is the more basic of the two: the Shang writing on bronzes is more complex and pictographic than that scratched into the OB. It seems that the difficulty of engraving into the hard bone resulted in simplification and stylistic change, and it is easy to conclude by comparing the two in detail that the bronze version more closely reflects the normal script in everyday use. On the bronzes, these graphs could be created with a stylus in the wet clay, mirroring the ease with which they could be brush-written. In other words, the inference is that the ease of carving the wet clay allowed the complexity of the daily, (assumedly) brush-written script to be preserved, while the hard bones were not so easily carved, resulting in graphical changes. I will try to find some more references on this specific point shortly, but see for example Woon p.87-8, "The reasons why Shang and Zhou bronze preserve these primitive picture characters...is chiefly because the method of casting characters on bronze permits the drawing of the (relatively complex) picture characters." And "The employment of thick strokes in writing obviously developed from primitive drawings. From the pictures on both Banpo and Jingzhai pottery..., it can be seen that a sort of flexible painting or writing brush was presumably already in use at that time (Guo 1972:2). It can be assumed that the striking pictorial nature of characters of this first period originally had a close connection with the use of a flexible writing brush." (Woon, p.90, citing one of the most prominent Chinese scholars, Guo Moruo, from Gudai wenzi zhi biangzheng de fazhan. Kaogu 3.2-13.

Here below in double asterisks is what the new paragraph would look like if we A) trim some of the excess material, as this is all irrelevant to stroke order anyway, B) word more carefully to avoid the perception that OB are the earliest writing (earliest *extant and *significant is correct), and C) very concisely incorporate mentions of bronze, pottery, and Shang-period bamboo/wood book forms. I am proposing using this to replace the current section. Feedback pls? Thanks.

• • The earliest significant extant corpus of Chinese characters are in carved (and a few in brush-written) form on the so-called oracle bones, scapulomancy fortune-telling devices engraved or written dating to the Shang dynasty. Some writing on pottery shards and bronze vessels also exists from this period. However, these are thought to have been merely some of the media to which characters were applied, and it is generally only the carved or cast, harder materials which survived. There is evidence of Shang-period writing on bamboo- or wood-slat books, preserved in both early Western Zhou textual citations, as well as in Shang-period graphs which depict such books as well as the brushes used to write in them. By the late Zhou dynasty, surviving examples of writing on bamboo, silk and finally paper appear.**

References supporting today's arguments:

劉興隆Liú Xīnglóng (1997). 新編甲骨文字典 (new oracle bone dictionary), 文史者出版社, 台北. Wénshĭzhĕ (Wen-shih-che) Publishing, Taipei. ISBN 957-549-062-2.

Norman, Jerry (1988). Chinese. Cambridge University Press, UK. ISBN 0521228093; 0521296536. Dr. Norman is at the Dept. of Asian Languages and Literature, Univ. of Washington.

裘錫圭 Qiú Xīguī (2000). Chinese Writing. Translation of 文字學概論 by the late Gilbert L. Mattos (Chairman, Dept. of Asian Studies, Seton Hall University) and Jerry Norman (Professor Emeritus, Asian Languages & Literature Dept., Univ. of Washington). Early China Special Monograph Series No. 4. Berkeley: The Society for the Study of Early China and the Institute of East Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley. ISBN 1-55729-071-7.

Woon, Wee Lee (1987). Chinese Writing: Its Origin and Evolution. Originally publ. by the Univ. of East Asia, Macau (no ISBN); now available through Joint Publishing. No ISBN. Fax: 852-28104201; email: jpchk@jointpublishing.com (attn: Edith Ho kit-sheung). Note: the Joint Publishing staff can’t seem to handle English titles well; be sure to send the author and title in Chinese by fax to get the right book: 作者: 雲惟利， 書名: 漢字的原始和演變.

Wú, Teresa L. (1990). The Origin and Dissemination of Chinese Characters (中國文字只起源與繁衍). Caves Books, Taipei ISBN 957-606-002-8, OOP.

趙誠 Zhào Chéng (Chao Ch’eng; 1988) 甲骨文簡明詞典 – 卜辭分類讀本 jiǎgǔwén jiǎnmíng cídiǎn – bǔcí fēnlèi dúbĕn. 中華書局 Zhōnghúa Shūjú, ISBN 7-101-00254-4/H•22. Note: Zhao Cheng was a student of 胡小石 Hú Xiǎoshí at 中央大學 Central University, and studied oracle bone writing under 于省吾 Yú Xĭngwú (ed. of Gǔlín, q.v.). He is one of the top figures in philology in the PRC, and as editor at 中華書局has made great contributions to the field, including his co-editing (under the pen name of 肖丁Xiào Dīng) of Lèizuǎn (殷墟甲骨刻辭類纂) and Móshì (殷墟甲骨刻辭摩釋總集).

Dragonbones 08:24, 17 March 2006 (UTC)

Regarding stroke order on the oracle bones themselves, note that there is evidence relevant to stroke order in Keightley, and also additional evidence that at least some characters were brush-written on the shells or bones, and then engravings were subsequently made of those same characters. Reference is Keightley, Sources of Shang History, page 46, section 2.9.1 as follows: "A small number of the inscriptions were apparently written first with a brush dipped in ink and were then incised; these graphs are generally large and crude in style, and are found on the back of scapulas or plastrons. Some marginal notations were also written on the bridge with a brush. the brush strokes generally followed the same direction and sequence as those used by traditional and modern calligraphers." (On the latter point Keightley cites Tung (sic) 1948a, p.127 and 1949a p. 264. These references are, respectively, 董作賓 Tung Tso-bin (sic, i.e., Dong Zuobin) "Ten Examples of Early Tortoise-shell Inscriptions." Harvard Journal of Asiatic Studies 11, pp. 119-129; and "Yin-hsü wen-tzu yi-pien hsü 殷墟文字乙編序." Chung-kuo k'ao-ku hsüeh-pao 4, pp.255-289. I've left the references in old romanization exactly as cited by Keightley. The latter would be Yinxu wenzi yi bian xu, in Zhongguo Kaoguxue Bao in pinyin.

Dragonbones May 22, 2007

Simplified Chinese Input Device (to archive)

Note that --DV is not longer active on Misplaced Pages (3 edits since 2005)

For other Misplaced Pages contributors who input Chinese, or need to create Pinyin romanizations of Chinese, I have started working with the PenPower Chinese Handwriting Recognition System.

My initial experience with this device can be found on my user page.

If anyone has any questions about the PenPower device, please feel free to post either on this talk page, or over on my user talk page. So far, the out-of-the-box experience for this device has been excellent, but I'll post again later, after I see how it holds up to everyday use, to let you know if I highly recommend it or not. --DV 10:12, 20 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Calligraphic Stroke Order

I don't know enough about this yet in order to write about this, but calligraphic stroke order rules actually differs from the "standard" stroke order rules taught in Chinese schools today. In addition, I believe the Japanese have their own stroke order rules that more or less follow the calligraphic stroke order rather than the current "standard" stroke order. For instance I don't think the "Cutting strokes last" rule is in the calligraphic stroke order. Someone more knowledgeable about this should probably write something up concerning this. --Umofomia 05:03, Feb 10, 2005 (UTC)

I'm sorry to don't have a perfect English, but I wrote this Stroke_order#Read_the_Stroke_order_from_the_graph & Stroke_order#Three_National_stroke_order_schools which may answer to you Yug (talk) 17:08, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

Needs more contents

I agree with the discussion on the featured article discussion page that this needs more contents. For example, there is no explanation of how to write something like 門 - from this article I would not be able to understand that the right outside part is one stroke, but the left side is two strokes, in the normal order. At the moment the article is vague, also there was a mistake about where the stroke order originated from - it comes from the so-called "grass style". There is a great need for more examples and more explanations using real characters in the second half of the article, where the rules are. --DannyWilde 01:02, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Both the left and right sides of this character (門) contain the same number of strokes: 4. Each half is actually a sort of 日 with one stroke elongated, the left-most stroke on the left, and the right-most stroke on the right -- or you could think of it as a 月 with one stroke foreshortened.

The stroke order for this character is explained in rules 8 and 9 in the article:

"Left vertical strokes are written before enclosing strokes . . . the leftmost vertical stroke (|) is written first, followed by the uppermost and rightmost lines (┐) (which are written as one stroke)"

and

"Outside enclosing strokes are written before inside strokes; bottom strokes are written last."

I'm quite happy to add more examples, as long as they don't clutter up the article. We don't need to explain every character, but those that are tricky, or complicated, or deviate from the expected sequence can certainly be highlighted.

Exploding Boy 07:05, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Discussion of reverts

I just this morning corrected a major mistake in this article, he has just reverted out the correction again, claiming for some reason he is 'restoring a lost paragraph'. Look again, Exploding Boy. The lost paragraph was WRONG. Grass style is the BASIS of stroke order. Geez. --DannyWilde 03:23, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

The sentence I wrote that you characterise as "badly written English" is -- I think -- much better written and easier to understand than the one you propose.

Your paragraph: "Stroke order . . . refers to the way in which Chinese characters are written. The stroke order of a character gives the order and direction in which the brush strokes, or simply "strokes", are written."

This makes little sense to me. The stroke order does not "give" anything, it "is" something, specifically a set of rules that determine the order and direction in which the strokes that make up Chinese characters are written.

My sentence: "Stroke order . . . refers to the way in which Chinese characters are written, that is, the order and direction in which the marks ("strokes") that form a given character are drawn."

This is not only simpler and more descriptive, but more accurate. Strokes are not only made by brushes, strokes are not always "brush strokes," and so on.

On the topic of the paragraph you characterise as "erroneous," I think you are misreading it. Here it is:

"The normalisation of stroke order in Chinese characters allows readers to recognize characters that are written in cursive styles, in particular the highly stylized Grass script style, by recreating in their imagination the sequence of movements used to write a given character."

What this paragraph is saying is that since there is a standard stroke order for writing Chinese characters, readers can decipher characters that differ in appearance from the standard, ie: those that are written cursively, such as grass script. This is possible because, since there are standard rules, readers can recreate in their imagination the motions used to write a character.

I'm not sure how you interpreted it, but judging from your remarks above you seem to have misunderstood it.

In addition, I'm not certain where you're getting the idea that grass script is the "basis" for stroke order. Given that grass style -- essentially a highly cursive style of writing -- developed some time after the origins of Chinese characters and their standardization, by necessity after oracle script and bronzware script, and, as far as I can tell, seal script, clerical script, and various others, I don't see how this can be the case, especially since grass script is characterised by a marked economy of individual strokes (言, for example, often being abbreviated from seven strokes to a single stroke). Could you clarify this?

As to the comments I removed from above, please discuss them on my talk page.

Exploding Boy 06:19, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Chinese Stroke order : Taiwan, China, Japan

If you need picture of strokes order please have a look here

• http://commons.wikimedia.org/Category:Chinese_stroke_order
• http://commons.wikimedia.org/Chinese_stroke_order:KanjiProgression

and on my user page on wikicommons http://commons.wikimedia.org/User:M4RC0, You will find the 1st and 2nd grade of http://en.wikipedia.org/Kyoiku_kanji and JPLT1

I don't understand if this article speak about Chinese stroke order or Japanese stroke order ..

for exemple the rule 3 is wrong if you write in japanese 田 , you draw : (|) (┐) then for write the 十, has two strokes written as follows: | → 十. but it's true in chinese stroke order..

you have the same probleme with 王 in japanese in chinese

sometime it's funny ..in japanese : for exemple 左 and 右 , the two first stroke are not the same, so when i write 有 or 友 which order I use ?

I like this article. But there is about 3000-5000 kanji, I think you will always find an "exception", So it's difficult a global rule (personnaly, I draw for the wikicommons about 800 hundred kanji/hanzi , I always have to check in my dictionnary, most of these rules doesn't work so fine..)

it's would be nice also to speak about the stroke direction.

sorry for the english .. --M4RC0 09:15, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

The stroke order thing is just for elementary kids to learn how to write characters properly; if you ever have seen how native writers writing with their pens, you will understand in the instant that the information provided in this article is totally "theoretical" lol... -- G.S.K.Lee 14:43, 15 March 2006 (UTC)>

Of course it is. Who ever writes even English in the exact way you were taught at school? ShizuokaSensei 02:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Misleading Image

The character 永 only has five strokes, not eight, and is indexed that way in dictionaries. The middle vertical stroke is performed with one motion. The leading dot occurs by the landing of the brush on the medium, and the final "tick" is performed by flicking up and to the left. It's misleading to explain this as three separate, overlapping strokes without additional explanation. It's one stroke with three features. Similarly, the left stroke is just one motion also. A stroke isn't a necessarily a straight line. It is a congtiguous motion performed without lifting the pen or brush.

I get what you're saying, but the caption doesn't say it has 8 strokes, it says it has 8 'different kinds' of strokes, meaning a few of the strokes include 2 or 3 different styles in one. The wording might be done a little better ... maybe

this character displays 8 different stroke styles, used over 5 strokes?

  freshgavin TALK    15:07, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

yeap, it's that : 5 stroke, but containing the 8 "traditional main stroke" Yug

Seeing as this is pretty fundamental to the whole article I also thing this image is confusing. It should either be scrapped or redone. You can't have 8 different kinds of stroke in something that everyone is taught has 5 strokes. Akihabara 07:56, 28 December 2006 (UTC)

A lovely article

This arctle is really lovely. Everyone should be proud. ShizuokaSensei 06:33, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

So what? Why does it matter?

incorrectly ordered or written strokes can produce a visually unappealing or, occasionally, incorrect character Well, yes. And it's also true that knowledge is essential in order to read particular kinds of handwriting. But I think this article gives a rather false impression of two extremes: printing (or handwriting that resembles it), and a very cursive script. In my (Japanese) experience, most real-world handwriting falls somewhere between the two extremes, and if you don't know about stroke order, you won't be able to read a large percentage of handwriting. So the answer to my rhetorical question is: "More than the article seems to suggest."

Also, how about near-minimal-pairs? In Japan, at least, 左 and 右 (which of course have opposite meanings and appear in the same contexts) have different orders for the first pair of strokes (as excellently illustrated above). One has to know this.

But I hesitate to edit this article because I'm far from being an expert. -- Hoary 12:03, 5 July 2006 (UTC)

Stroke order isn't really that important. -- G.S.K.Lee 14:42, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Depends just what you mean. It's common knowledge that people don't always follow the correct order to the number, but to say stroke order as a whole is not important is incorrect. For starters, without a standadised method for writing, it it'd be imposible to teach writing at all. The odd stroke here and there out of order makes no difference, but if you try writing Chinese or Japanese in the opposite order to the 'correct' order, then the chances are it will look at lot worse. By the same token, if you didn't stress the importance of the correct order, local variations and alterations would become a lot more common. For a writng system that is pretty intricate, if you lost the standadised, 'correct' method of sriting it, it would soon degenerate into chaos. ShizuokaSensei 04:32, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

Failed GA

This is an interesting subject, but I do have a couple of concerns:

1. Per WP:LEAD, the lead is too long; it should be two to three paragraphs for an article of this length. Some material should be moved to appropriate sections.
2. The "Rules" section is not entirely clear about how the rules interact and which ones supersede others in various circumstances. For example, the dot in the symbol for "fire" is shown as written second, but rule 11 states that those dots are usually written last.

In short, it's a decent article, but some clarification and reorganization would be helpful. — TKD::Talk 17:21, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I was planning on reviewing this article, and I'd like to point out that the table of simple strokes does not show all of the strokes. n/a is not a helpful visual representation. Also, there are no inline citations. --Cryptic C62 20:00, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

it's still easily a GA. What's with the near-FA requirements for GA, recently? We don't need two grades if they mean practically the same thing. dab (ᛏ) 19:49, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

2 more section to add

1. Section "Old calligraphic style and current Stroke order" : there is a Origine => consequence link. Done - Yug
2. Section "Variation function of the country" : there are 3 differents rules function of China, Traditionnal Chinese, and Japanese-Korean. Done - Yug

--Yug (talk) 15:00, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Clean up Improvement (start on january 2007)

I think it's now need to

• clean up the Main-China_stroke_order_rules section. We have a table, and then a list of explanation. Can you help to merge the both ? Done - by Exploding boy (Thanks !)
• Half of this article being about CJK strokes, it may be need to create an article CJK strokes  Done - Yug

Yug (talk) 15:18, 28 January 2007 (UTC)

The Introductive section is it misleading ?

The introductive section talk a lot about Jiaguwen, scapulomancy, and such origines of chinese characters. I like this, it's really interesting, but this article is the "Stroke order article". Most of the introduction should be remove (where ? should this be absolutely keep in this article ? May we remove text about Jiaguwen & scapulomancy here, on the talk page ?). The Introduction should also be expand by some summaries of each section. Yug (talk) 09:17, 26 March 2007 (UTC)

Removed from article

This entire section seems to make no sense, smacks of original research, and I'm not convinced it really has much to do with the article Exploding Boy 05:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

This from January 2007 may require copy editing for grammar, style, cohesion, tone, or spelling. You can assist by editing it. (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Ancient China —

Jiǎgǔwén Jīnwén Dàzhuàn Xiǎozhuàn Lìshū Kǎishū (t) Kǎishū (s) Source

In archaic China, the Jiǎgǔwén characters (Oracle script), carved on ox scapula and tortoise plastrons (see Oracle bones) showed no indication of stroke order. The graph of each semantic meaning such as "Man" or "Horse" show huge variations depending of which oracle bones one looks at, and the "stroke order" was probably the stroke order of the local pyromantic divin.

With the development of Jīnwén and Dàzhuàn (Bronzeware script and Large Seal Script) we continue to see "cursive" signs which also do not indicate a clear a stroke order. Moreover, it is evident that even as late as the development of Large seal (Dàzhuàn) style, each archaic kingdom of current China had its own set of characters.

Imperial China —

In Imperial China, the graphs on the old steles —some being as far as 2,200 years old (200 BC) and in Xiaozhuan style— start to reveal tiny indications of the stroke order of the time.

About 220 BC, the emperor Qin Shi Huang, the first to conquer all China, impose several reforms, in which the Li Si's Characters uniformisation, imposing a set of 3.000 standardized "Xiǎozhuàn" characters. But the style is still not enough "geometrical" to read a stroke order from graphs on steles, and every paper's calligraphies of the time were lost.

The true starting point of the possibility to determine the stroke order of old style is the Lìshū style (Clerical script) which is more geometric and more similar to the current regular style. In theory, by looking the Lìshū style steles' graphs and the exact place of each stroke, we can see an "hierarchisation" of priority between the strokes, which indicate us the stroke order use by the calligrapher or stele sculptors.

The first apparition of Kǎishū style (regular script) —still in use nowadays— more regular and geometric, allows us to read more clearly the hierachisation and so the stroke order use to write on the steles. It is to notice that this analyze show that the stroke order 1,000 years before was close but was not the same that in the end of Imperial China. An other thing is that some graphs in the stele show clearly the stroke order, while current Kǎishū graphs, still using the same stroke order, doesn't show clearly the stroke order. By example, the stroke order of 广 is really clear if we read the Kangxi dictionary of 1716; but if we read a book print in 2024, the official stroke order (the same) will not appear clearly (see here). The Kangxi and current shapes have tiny differences, while current stroke order is still exactly the same, according to old style.

The official shape of every radical and characters continue to move along history. It is also important to note that "graph" and "stroke order" are closely linked.

In addition, I've removed some incorrect claims. For example, someone had included in the article the claim that the character ㇀ is a "stroke." This is emphatically not the case. ㇀ is a radical; a stroke, however, it is not.(it was a computer-unicode trouble. Exploding Boy screen showed him 口.) Exploding Boy 05:25, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for your work and clean up of the introduction and some other sections. But, I don't agree with several modifications. In example : 廴，戈，方，母，瓦，癶，禸，舟，辶，阝，骨，and 鬼 aren't all characters as you changed it, in bold are the 偏旁 pianpang, which are radicals only and can't be use alone (see 康熙字典，Zhonghua shuju, Hong Kong, 1958, 1979). Then, the sentence just after that you deleted had all its sense. This is the only "true" mistake that I seen in my overview.

Other point is that the section that you remove in the talk page answer to question such as "what is the stroke order of Jinwen's characters", images are there to show an example, people can go to buy calligraphic books if they want to see hundred of Jinwen characters to match with this statement that everybody can find out.

The unreadability of the stroke order in old style is a well know statement, or please show me where a serious scholar wrote the opposite. While the stroke order readability of Lishu and Kaishu is also a fact. Article about stroke order have to talk of stroke order, and talk of the possible stroke order of each style such Jiaguwen, Jinwen, Zhuanshu, Lishu, Kaishu, Xinshu, Zaoshu, is a part of this work, exactly like the need to talk that the stroke order change in Taiwan, PRC, and Japan-Korea.

Yug (talk) 20:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the Ti may be look as a stroke if look in a stroke list. But it cannot be look as a radical, it is neither in the 214 Kangxi radicals list, nor in the 189 simplified RPC radicals. Yug (talk) 20:43, 30 March 2007 (UTC)

An other thing, the double use of animations and png images had a clear purpose : allow both Web interaction (animations) and a printable article (png images). Then, I will restore the png images. Misplaced Pages is not a "web only" encyclopedia. --Yug (talk) 21:46, 6 April 2007 (UTC)

Category: Japanese language ?

This article wasn't put in Japanese language because it was already in the more specific category, Category:Kanji. —Umofomia 00:13, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Soon rewritting

This article will soon be greatly re-writted, mostly for the 3 last sections, according to this draft : user:Yug/Stroke order. I plan to :

• (Re)Move the Stroke_order#Basic and compound strokes and the Stroke_order#Complex strokes in Unicode sections in a CJK stroke article. Reason : this 2 section and Unicode 4.1 list are not in the subject, and in some points perfectly... out of the subject.  Done - Yug
• Include a "Direction of Basic and Complex strokes" section  Done - Yug
• Totally re-write the "Basic rules of stroke order"  Done - Yug
• Make some 37 pics of basic and complex strokes to illustrated the "Direction of Basic and Complex strokes" ? no more planned.

My aim is to make it clearer, shorter, more logical , more illustrated, and more on the topic (way to write a CJK charater). Yug (talk) 23:37, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

I totaly changed 2 sections, you can see why here. I'm also writing to other sections : "Rules of Composition" and "Other special cases".

Your help is welcome to check my orthograph. Yug (talk) 18:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

All this work had been revert by exploding boy : see my adds ; and EB's the revert

• Yug : 15:50, 2 June 2007 (Huge re-writing-merging, according to User:Yug/Stroke order. Informations deleted have been merge into the new version, or move toward new articles.)
• Exploding Boy : 05:08, 5 June 2007 (Restore large amount of mysteriously removed information.)

--Yug (talk) 14:45, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

To-do list for Stroke order: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2008-06-05 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Article requests : FAC , when all this will be ended Cleanup : Clean up the introduction : to continue. Expand : Write the two last sections (Work there : user:Yug/Stroke order) Verify : Check the spelling of the new sections : Introduction ; Write the CJK strokes Done. (I'm french) - Yug No one but a French guy would write 'complexe' instead of 'complex' :). I rewrote the section concerning basic/complex strokes ; can you check if this is what you meant? Thank you for this great article! Check Exploding boy modification (90% good, restore the 10 other) Archive this talk page. Other : First ! Find a peaceful way allowing this article to progress !

Notes and Summary of this talk page

1. Proposition: most of S.O. rules doesn't work so fine.(as of 2007 june 2, not yet noticed)
2. Proposition: speak about the stroke direction.  Done - Yug
3. Proposition: "I common life, Stroke order rules are totally theorical", As of 2007 june 2, not yet noticed)}}.
4. Proposition: need illustration ( Done enough ?) ; knowledge is essential in order to read particular kinds of handwriting (on japanese experience); but most handwrinting are between cursive and regular. -summary by yug.
5. Proposition: stroke order is not so important.
6. Proposition: common people don't need SO and build their owns ; but learn a totaly wrong may be disastrous for the shape ; learners need SO rules ; state need standardized SO to keep standardized new shapes. -summary by Yug
7. Proposition: "explain how the rules interact and which ones supersede others"
8. Proposition: Show all possible strokes.
9. One rules = said one time. Merge rules which are in fact the same
10. link with calligraphy, cursive, etc

on the recent changes

The article has become cluttered, too short, hard to read and oddly layed out. I've restored a lot of information that was removed and didn't appear to have been placed anywhere in the article. Exploding Boy 05:10, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I write it again :

I totaly changed 2 sections, you can see why here (explain in green). I'm also writing to other sections : "Rules of Composition" and "Other special cases".

A large part of what you restored because "was removed and didn't appear to have been placed anywhere" is simply in the article CJK strokes since June 1. this article is free to talk about Unicode set of strokes (which is partial an just one of the several know set of CJK strokes). Yug 07:39, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

To talk clearly, you have less knwoledge than me about stroke order, and about Chinese component either. In example :

1. You didn't know that 廴，癶，禸，辶，阝 aren't characters, but are only radicals ;
2. you state that "the character ti ㇀ is a radical; a stroke, however, it is not." which is false. Please find it in the Kangxi list. (true : ti is a stroke only) ;
3. You deleted by 2 times the section about stroke order in history, which I wrote, and which User:Dragonbones had agree with ;
4. You protecte a section talking about Unicode set of stroke (16 strokes), but this unicode list have no porpose on Stroke order aricle (and have been move to CJK strokes). Other set are more pertinent here (one with 37 strokes).

But after all this showing that you have less abilities on this issue that it is now need, when you delete all this, you only state "Restore large amount of mysteriously removed information.", whithout notice what you deleted (2 new section "how write CJK strokes" + new redaction of the "Stroke after stroke" section).

I will talk with Dragonebones and Nlu (administrator) about this, then I will restore my last version.

--Yug (talk) 08:01, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I disagree, and I find both your editing style both here and in the article unnecessarily complicated and difficult to understand.

As to your points:

1. I did know that the radicals you list are radicals and not characters. I wrote the original rules of stroke order section, which covered exactly those types of radicals. Don't know where you got that from.
2. The character ㇀ is a radical, not a stroke (it's also a character in its own right). You've been editing the article for how long? Look at the opening paragraph: "a stroke is a single movement of the writing instrument." A "character" is almost always composed of more than one stroke. This character contains three strokes, one of them (the 2nd one) a compound stroke. This is confirmed in the List of Kangxi radicals article, which states: "The following is a list of all 214 Kangxi radicals, used originally in the 1615 Zihui and adopted by the 1716 Kangxi dictionary, in order of the number of strokes."
3. I don't know what you mean.
4. I haven't "protected" any section.

Sorry, but this article has become, as I said above, a big mess. It's difficult to read, difficult to follow, has far too many illustrations, tables, graphs, and animated gifs, is confusingly layed out, and just isn't written very well. Why, for example, did you remove the section on rules of stroke order? That was a clear, easy to follow section. Now the information has been scattered all over the article, if it's even still there (which much of it doesn't seem to be). Exploding Boy 16:18, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

1. According this historic diference, your edit changed "廴，戈，方，母，瓦，癶，禸，舟，辶，阝，骨，鬼. Similar stroke order simplifications appear in characters who have such radicals or graphical part " (my version) into "Some examples are the characters 廴，戈，方，母，瓦，癶，禸，舟，辶，阝，骨，and 鬼." (your version). Accordingly, you included a mistake in this article.
2. The Ti "㇀" (on my screen : ) is, according to the Kangxi list, and the unicode : a stroke, only. This is now ok : it was a computer (font) trouble. Exploding boy and me were both of good faith O.ô........ Yug
3. answer to the point 3 : ... now I understand why.
4. point 4 : by "protect" I mean "revert and revert again to keep a section to keep it (the Unicode strokes one)". I'm french, I use the words I know.... But if one day I say to you that you protect your younger sister, you will not said you can't because you are not a wikipedia admin. (In french the word "protect" work fine in this case).

Conclusion.... 4 points, one true opposition.

Yug (talk) 20:51, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

In regards to your point 1, above, I have no idea what the problem is that you're having with that particular edit. In regards to 3, I still don't know what you're talking about. And in regards to 4, "protect" and "revert" mean 2 different things, especially on Misplaced Pages. Sorry, Yug, I don't wish to be rude, but I think the problem is your English ability, not my knowledge of Chinese characters. Exploding Boy 21:20, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

The point 1's mistake is that they aren't "all" characters. Some are not (廴，癶，禸，辶，阝).

The point 3 : you removed the section about stroke order in old script 2 times.

Misplaced Pages being not a web only encyclopedia, printable image a need too.

The Unicode CJK list (uncomplete, excluding several basic strokes, and about 15 compound strokes) have no purpose in this article.

I agree, I have a average english.

... which is not really need with you since you revert before to talk.

Yug (talk) 21:37, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I'm not going to go on and on ad infinitum here, but no, strictly speaking the itms in your #1 are not all "characters," but "characters" is simply a convenient way to refer to that group of characters and radicals in the context of that sentence, and it's better than the original "PRC's simplification of stroke order appear on," which is just bad English. There's no need to get personal, but let's be clear: since English isn't your first language, your contributions are going to need editing for style and clarity. I hope you're not going to object every single time. Exploding Boy 22:14, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with this : my spelling need corrections, I know this. So I will simply change graphical part into "component", as teach me Dragonebones, and this point will be fine too. ^,..,^y

Stay at less :

• the Unicode partial and made for computing list of strokes is not pertinent here. (uncomplete, excluding several basic strokes, and excluding about 15 compound strokes)
• .png printable images are need.
• a section about stroke order in old scripts is need too.

Other changes I made were just merging + re-writing + adding images. No one idea was deleted, only wrote shorter, and without double. --Yug (talk) 22:43, 5 June 2007 (UTC)

Re-writting the Introduction

I removed this, talking mainly about "Chinese formerly written with brush", or other out-topic :

"Stroke order" can refer both to the numerical order in which the strokes of a given character are written and to the direction in which the writing instrument must move in producing a particular stroke.

Chinese characters are used in various forms in modern Chinese languages, Japanese, and, in South Korea, for Korean. They are known as hànzì in Mandarin, kanji in Japanese, and hanja or hanmun in Korean.

It is a common misconception that Chinese characters were originally encarved; in fact, Chinese characters are believed to have originally been brush-written on perishable materials such as bamboo or wood slats, which could then be bound together like Venetian blinds, and rolled for storage. Examples of such books have been found dating to the late Zhou dynasty.

The precise number of Chinese characters in existence is disputed. The Japanese "Daikanwa Jiten", a modern comprehensive dictionary of Chinese characters, includes fifty thousand, and more recently published Chinese dictionaries have included more than eighty thousand, although whether these are all unique characters or merely obscure variant forms is debated. Regardless of the total number, literacy in Chinese requires knowledge of three to five thousand characters, and Japanese two to three thousand characters.

--Yug (talk) 14:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC) The/my new introduction is far to be perfect : please helps ! --Yug (talk) 14:59, 10 June 2007 (UTC) (And I talk maybe too much about stroke order across history)

In case of disagreement : ask other contributors to comments my work yourself => WP:RfC/here. --Yug (talk) 15:48, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

Yug, I'm really sorry but I find your changes very difficult to understand. In the introduction alone you've taken clear, well-written sentences and rewritten them so that they say almost exactly the same thing, but just not in good English. It really would probably be easier if we discussed your proposed changes here before you make them. Exploding Boy 23:33, 10 June 2007 (UTC)

...Which is why I've restored a previous version of the page. Again, sorry, but it's just too confusing trying to rewrite all that stuff. I've tried to preserve as many of your changes as possible. Exploding Boy 06:47, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Strategy number 2 (to Exploding boy)

First, I notice you than since yesterday I apply your strategy "Wide revert + minor change".

The re-writing is not "too confusing trying to rewrite all that stuff", it's simply too much work for you and your "revert + minor change" strategy. To support this sentence, I note that other users already did such correction (Three National stroke order schools by user:158.125.1.113), slowly. Hasty-revert is more fun, that's true.
Conclusion : stop to delete content for the reason "too confusing", for you. If you can't improve my spelling, let other do.
Note that wide part of the English Misplaced Pages is write by foreigners, and then improve by native speaker.

In summary, we have different view for this article for several sections :

• The introduction - you want keep the previous ; I want a new one making a summary of the article
• The "Stroke order in history" section - now ok. Supported by Dragonebones and myself.
• The stroke order section - you want keep the current ; I want 3 new ones "stroke-by-stroke"-"components order"(-"special cases" )
• The CJK stroke section - now ok. You wanted to keep the Unicode 16 strokes set ; I wanted a "calligraphic"/complete set of CJK strokes.
• The sources section (strangely) - you want keep the previous ; I want divide the sources between the 3 ways

Looking further in the history, I found that the 3 sections you want to keep were wrote by you, in september 2004.

I still wish 3 section changes for content reasons. The 3 that I wish are because :

• your introduction － one half of your introduction talk about carving, then brush, also lot about the number of characters in Chinese (80.000!), and the number of strokes by character.
• The stroke order section － my proposed change break this section in 2 level, to don't confuse stroke order and component order, which are not the same level.
• The source section － many visitors are Japanese learner, for them, link about Japanese and Chinese stroke order should not be confuse.

All these reasons were previously explain, and obtain no answer from you, except "full revert + sorry Yug, your English is confusing".

Conclusion

Since in one hand, you appear unable to contest my knowledge and ideas ; and in the other hand, you don't seem to want involve yourself enough to make spelling correction and so just make hasty-reverts, I conclude that you are to busy to build and improve this article.

The last constructive proposition I made was the clear proposition of a RfC (here), which -by your last revert on spelling reason- you declined.

Then and this since yesterday, I will mirrored your "hasty-revert" strategy to allow myself and other users (having time to correct my spelling) to finish the work.

From now, your revert policy will be no more tolerate.

For other users who want to comment this opposition

I stop here to talk with Exploding boy, his revert policy is too convenient, and my "explaining policy" take me too much time (not give to redaction). From now, his revert policy will be no more tolerate, and I will sadly revert each his reverts. Mediation and content check is welcome.

--Yug (talk) 19:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC) (my Stroke order books)

I have no "strategy." All I'm trying to do is improve this article and keep it from degenerating any further. I'm sorry, but as I stated before, you've taken clear, well-written sentences and rewritten them with largely the same content, just in poor English. Why?

All I'm saying is, why don't you discuss the changes you want to make here on the talk page, so that we can edit them for English before you put them in the article? Again, I'm really not trying to be rude, but much of the time I'm not even sure what your intended meaning is.

Please don't start automatically reverting any changes I make to the article, as you threaten above; such behaviour is considered edit warring, and may get you blocked. Exploding Boy 20:17, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Other users already did such corrections (Three National stroke order schools by user:158.125.1.113). Stop to revert/delete content for spelling reasons, you can simply add the {{spelling}} template. Otherwise, Let other do. --Yug (talk) 20:58, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Please stop adding that template to this talk page and to my talk page. It is offensive and inflammatory.

As I've mentioned several times, the issue isn't spelling. Exploding Boy 21:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Stop putting that template here. Please consider this your final warning on the subject. Exploding Boy 21:14, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Image, template, whichever it is, you are being disruptive. Such behaviour will get you blocked, Yug. Stop it. Exploding Boy 21:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

WP:RfC/here Yug (talk) 21:33, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Introduction : changes need

• see Talk:Stroke order#The Introductive section is it misleading ? diff - march 26, 2007
• see Talk:Stroke order#Re-writting the Introduction - june 10, 2007
• see Talk:Stroke order#Strategy number 2 (to Exploding boy) (in the list of dot) - june 11, 2007

--Yug (talk) 16:26, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Your help is welcome there : Stroke order/Temp (mostly spelling) Yug (talk) 11:38, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

The Sources : 3 strokes order school ; 3 category of sources need

To don't confuse student in Japanese, and those in Chinese studies, it is need to don't put together links toward Japanese stroke order, and links toward Chinese stroke order.

• see : Stroke order#Three national schools of stroke order - january 2007 ?
• see Talk:Stroke order#Strategy number 2 (to Exploding boy) (in the list of dot) - june 11, 2007

--Yug (talk) 16:22, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

Rewrite discussion

There's not much point in just making changes on the /temp page without discussing them.

So, beginning with the introduction.

What do "way and shape" and "components order" mean?

It seems to me that Yug is trying to say exactly the same thing as in the original, and that the original paragraph is fine as it is Exploding Boy 15:48, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, so the work mode is on again.

I propose to you write your question in comment "<!-- -->", that will be quicker and more convenient, and to work on the Stroke order/Temp. Don't be affraid to correct a full section, I will see your correction later a correct a bit if need.

"way and shape" : "way" = direction of writing (?) (toward bottom-left for )

"components order" : 1st radicals, then the 2d, etc. Ex: 人＋一＋口＋手 ＝ 拿. But the word "radical" is not allow here. In example : 一 ＋ x + L = 区 . The X is not in the radical list. and 匚 is break in 2. So "elements order" (?) may be better.

--Yug (talk) 16:01, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

I think it's much easier to do the discussion here. We'll end up with pages of "<!-- -->" otherwise.

Isn't all the information you're talking about covered by "numerical order" and "direction"? Exploding Boy 16:05, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Point 1 : Ok

Point 2 : Way => direction :  Done

numerical order : ok. I want divide the work in "Write a radical/element" = Stroke order ; And the "elements order", teaching wich radical should be write first, which in 2nd. Then, a third section will talk about special cases : 区 ; 离； 非 ； 我. And I want notice this views in the introduction.

--Yug (talk) 16:39, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Hold on. Can we just discuss one paragraph at a time instead of one entire section? It's going to be far easier to figure out what we're talking about (and since we are only discussing one paragraph right now, it's not especially helpful to have to entire first section there. Actually, it's making it harder to refer to the specific part we're talking about).

As for "elements order," let's try to be clear here.

Very simply, "stroke order" is about how to write individual Chinese characters. It's not really about radicals, and which radical is written first in a complex character. The character 働 (work) has two distinct radicals, but there's no rule that I know of that states that 人 (person) must be written before 力 (power). In this case, at least, the "left to right" rule applies.

There are exceptions to the general rules of "left to right, top to bottom," such as bottom enclosing strokes (as in 連), but again, doesn't "numerical order" cover this? Exploding Boy 16:52, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Composition of radicals/elements into one characters also the "from left to right" + "from top to bottom" rules, that totally right. But it is first need to finish a radical/element, and then only, make the next. examples are : 符 (118. 竹 bamboo write first)，發 (105. 癶 dotted tent write first)，福 (113. 礻 standing spirit first), which otherwise are confusing for beginers. It's this "radicals/elements order" which finally supersede. When we look on old calligraphy, we can then understand why 這，or 過 are write in this way. "Numerical order" (from what I understand) say the same, but "numerical" don't explain it.

Then, for teaching purpose, I think it's better to teach how to write radicals/elements (stroke after stroke), in the same time how to combine them (element after element : 什，古，故，符), and then teach the special brainf*ck cases (for strokes merges or changes : 我，这, 林, 成 ; and for special combinations : 区，凶，匕，比).

This is what I plan to do.

--Yug (talk) 18:26, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Ok, I don't know what you mean above. But "numerical" means, for lack of a better term, the number order: stroke #1, 2, 3, 4, etc. We're not supposed to be "teaching" here. Misplaced Pages is not a how-to manual. "This is what I plan to do" is not discussion or consensus. Exploding Boy 18:35, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

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