So Nick and I were talking this weekend about removing the hooks on strokes that occur in character boxes. Technically, the style is correct if you were painting in a calligraphic style, but several users have complained that the recognition is especially wonktastic for the second stroke in boxes. I know that when I'm writing hanzi with boxes on paper, I never hook that second stroke. Would anyone miss the hooked strokes if we went through and streamlined the recognition by eliminating those pesky hooks?

There is definitely a problem in relying on Chinese fonts as a model for hand-writing, since what's good calligraphy may not be standard hand-writing (if there is such a thing as standard hand-writing). Nevertheless, for my part, as both learner and teacher, I'd be more concerned that skritter gave accurate instruction rather than less annoying instruction.

Also, to clarify, what do you mean by boxes? If you're thinking of the 'big boxes' like on 国, 圆, 围, etc. I'd feel there was something less than right about a lack of hooks--looking at the hand-writing of several Chinese friends, I notice they all have hooks on such boxes. On the other hand the 'little boxes' in 吃, 和, 可 typically don't have hooks, while hooks in the 'boxes with lines in them' in characters such as 是, 男, 目 seem to have some sort of logic, but not one I have yet discovered.

According to a book I read, 口-type boxes with no lines in them should not have a hook. You can optionally put a hook in 日- or 目-style boxes with lines in them, or you can leave it off. I wasn't sure about 囗-style boxes like with 国; I guess I assumed they were optionally hooked, too, but that no one would hook them without a brush. But apparently your friends do put little hooks on them? Hmm. Do they also hook characters like 日 and 是?

Nick,

I've examined several letters from three different native writers, some using simplified, some traditional. Hardly a scientific survey, but I'd say it's pretty clear in all cases that they have hooks on the large framing style boxes (e.g. 個, 國, 因, 面) and it seems that 目 and 田 type shapes also have hooks, though more subtle (e.g. 看, 想, 當, 福) also have hooks, though not so obvious as the big frames. On 日 shapes (e.g. 都, 的) the hooks are still there except for the writers who have a very flowing styles. I don't know what it says about official rules (if there are such things), but it does suggest that some teacher made sure they drew their hooks in primary school.

Thanks for the investigation, zhouyi. I asked a professor here, and she also thought that the hooks were important.

So, they stay in. I'll be able to fix the recognition problems with them; they just make assembling new characters a little more difficult.