MethodGT
Member
From: Utah
Registered: 2008-01-28
Posts: 78
Going through RTK, Heisig says that the cornucopia has two strokes, not three. But on Yamasa, everything with it always has three. In particular, I was looking at income, #1510, and apart from having more strokes than Heisig says, it is in a completely different order. This is a link to it: http://yamasa.cc/members/ocjs/kanjidic. … enDocument
Who's right? Heisig or Yamasa?
DrJones
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2007-12-19
Posts: 209
Sorry, but I don't buy that reasoning.
The only usefulness I've found to keeping the stroke order, is for tracing the kanji on the air with your finger, as a way to tell your friend to which one you are referring.
For the most part, I enjoy to write kanji in unusual stroke orders just to see my pals look to me as if I just killed a sacred cow.
Last edited by DrJones (2008 May 04, 5:26 am)
rich_f
Member
From: north carolina
Registered: 2007-07-12
Posts: 1708
No, not really. Cornucopia is a rare word, rarely used. It's usually used to indicate a wide variety or large amount of something, like "A cornucopia of ____." But the actual cornucopia object only shows up in a lot of cheesy Thanksgiving decorations... it's still an odd word to use as a keyword.
And yes, stroke order DOES matter. I've had several Japanese teachers (and my Chinese calligraphy teacher) recognize bad stroke order just from looking at the finished product. Bad stroke order can make for unreadable characters if you're in a hurry. Proper stroke order will make your characters readable even if you rush a bit.
Heisig doesn't always get stroke order right, but he does a good job of getting close. I haven't really checked other sources for the stroke order for cornucopia, but it may be one of the few where stroke order isn't as critical... but I'm sure there's an authority out there somewhere (especially in the calligraphy world) who would say something definitive.
Last edited by rich_f (2008 May 07, 9:10 am)
MethodGT
Member
From: Utah
Registered: 2008-01-28
Posts: 78
Thanks for the replies everyone. So I guess my epiphany that stroke order isn't important might have been too quick a realization on my part. I see Katsuo's and Rich's point about quick writing. I guess they would definitely be right, because it seems like rows of horizontal lines are always connected in quick writing (kind of like a bunch of Z's on top of each other), and probably other things too. And Japanese readers would be used to seeing only one way of quick writing. If the stroke order was changed, there would be connector lines all over the place, and legibility would go way down.
About the word 'cornucopia', rich_f is right. It is a seldom used word, even though there are pictures of it everywhere during Thanksgiving.
Cangy, I didn't see your story for shout until now. I think if I would have seen it, I wouldn't have started this topic.
DrJones
Member
From: Spain
Registered: 2007-12-19
Posts: 209
About the Cornucopia thing. It's a mythical horn, also called Horn of abundance. You could take delicious food from it and it never emptied. You can see one in Disney's Fantasia. Heisig choose that word because people on the US use it as a symbol for Thanksgiving but, because no one else celebrates Thanksgiving, it's a very bad choice of keyword for us Europeans. If it's for some use to you, I've given it the alternate meanings "aircraft" and "4" on my stories (I recall that this 'cornucopia' primitive was really assigned to two primitives that were close to each other, that's why I assign a different tag to each one).
Last edited by DrJones (2008 May 07, 10:31 am)
