月 and 肉 radical question

During my studies today I came across the following problem.

According to the Pleco iPad dictionary many characters with the 月 radical on the left hand side are listed under the 肉 radical. Examples include 臉、肝 and 肢.

However when using the radical and stroke count input method the above characters are listed under both the 月 and the 肉 radicals.

Does anyone know why this is?

Thanks

[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]During my studies today I came across the following problem.

According to the Pleco iPad dictionary many characters with the 月 radical on the left hand side are listed under the 肉 radical. Examples include 臉、肝 and 肢.

However when using the radical and stroke count input method the above characters are listed under both the 月 and the 肉 radicals.

Does anyone know why this is?

Thanks[/quote]

technically, it’s not 月 and 肉 being listed as the same radicals. It’s ⺼ and 肉. technically 臉 肝’s left side is ⺼. They were all supposed to be 肉. The character didn’t look this way until much later. When Xiao3-Zhuan4 was still the official script, this is what 肉 looked like:

When Kai3-Shu became the standard, and wants to write each character with more right angles, the character 肉 became the way it looks today. But since the writing convention wants the left side of the character to take up only 1/3 of the space, radical for 臉肝 remained the same as the way it was written earlier. So that’s why ⺼ and 肉 are the same thing.

[quote=“hansioux”][quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]During my studies today I came across the following problem.

According to the Pleco iPad dictionary many characters with the 月 radical on the left hand side are listed under the 肉 radical. Examples include 臉、肝 and 肢.

However when using the radical and stroke count input method the above characters are listed under both the 月 and the 肉 radicals.

Does anyone know why this is?

Thanks[/quote]

technically, it’s not 月 and 肉 being listed as the same radicals. It’s ⺼ and 肉. technically 臉 肝’s left side is ⺼. They were all supposed to be 肉. The character didn’t look this way until much later. When Xiao3-Zhuan4 was still the official script, this is what 肉 looked like:

When Kai3-Shu became the standard, and wants to write each character with more right angles, the character 肉 became the way it looks today. But since the writing convention wants the left side of the character to take up only 1/3 of the space, radical for 臉肝 remained the same as the way it was written earlier. So that’s why ⺼ and 肉 are the same thing.[/quote]

謝謝,可是我找不到「xiao3zhuan4」的中文字。你可不可以幫我找到呢?

Hi there Milkybar_Kid. I’m guessing that it’s 小篆 (Small Seal Script, or Lesser Seal Script).

Found a nice description here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_Seal_Script

[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]However when using the radical and stroke count input method the above characters are listed under both the 月 and the 肉 radicals.

Does anyone know why this is?[/quote]
For convenience.

Because it’s too hard for users to GUESS whether 月 represents a moon, meat, or something else when it’s part of a character. The list of bushou (section headers, aka radicals) exists merely to provide users a convenient way to look up characters, in the absence of a method such as alphabetical order. Many of the bushou, such as this one, are not originally the same meaning in each of the characters listed in that section, anyway. Some don’t actually have any meaning on their own, either. So why not just group the ones like 月 and 肉 that both look like 月 as a component, or else cross list characters under both, so that no matter which one you look under, you’ll find the character? :idunno: Works for me.