It's about this primitive: 'hood' 冂
The first line is always straight down like |
But in 317 'circumference' 周 it goes like 丿
Even though Heisig sees this as the same I see a clear diffrence. Does anyone know in which kanjis the croocked one is used, and in which ones the straight ones? Because I am at Kanji 730 now, and I am afraid that I have been using them wrongly and sometimes did it straight when it had to go croocked and the other way around.
Thanks a lot!

-Mesqueeb

Mm good observation i didn't really notice. But i still drew [kana]onaji[/kana] (same) as a straight down, and [kana]shuu[/kana] (circumference) as a curve without even realising it;o.

I had a check, and it turns out only [kana]shuu[/kana] (circumference) has a curve, and everything else under a hood i.e a mouth, single stroke or whatever use a straight line.

Liosama, thanks for checking it! I could not do it myself since I am only at 730. But now I can focus my mind on this one slight diffrence so I'll do it straight '|' for everything but 'circumference 周', and ofcourse all the kanji that 'circumference' appears in.
I hope others now who read this won't be as confused as I was a minute ago!

-Mesqueeb

[Katsuo]

Kanji with the curved-edge version of "hood" are "circumference" 周 and other characters that include it. (317, 318, 349, 1710, 2135, 2812).
Also "angle" 角 and other characters that include it. (1812, 1813, 1814, 2682).

This is consistent in most (but not all) fonts.

Interesting.. Seems to me like the curvature in "circumference" 周 looks a lot like a bloated version of "moon/flesh" 月 or the old 册 "counter for books", which I'm assuming were scrolls. Naturally, as in "moon" you would write the stroke curving to match the meaning, the moon curves, a circumference follows a curve, etc. Thanks for the post, I just realized this, and I've been writing it incorrectly all along.

My old kanji dictionary with handwritten characters had 冊 curved, but I've always seen printed fonts have it straight. So I've always written it curved.

I guess that could be a typographical variation, just like the way you handwrite kanji like 近, 人, 入, 北 and 令 is different to how they're typically printed (although it does depend on the font).