Biang Check

I’ve noted before that my daughter (now 8yo) was a fan of the character “biang” (an unofficial character used to write the name of a kind of noodle in northwestern China). We’ve also pointed out to her that it’s frequently not printed out (just as it’s not in the text of this article) because computers can’t handle it. But it’s been a while since we thought or talked about the character “biang.”

Then recently my wife spotted this use of “biang” in the wild and shared it with our daughter:

Her immediate response was, “they wrote it wrong. It’s missing a 立刀旁 (刂).”

Aaaand, she was right:

We’ve created a monster!

P.S. Technically, there’s probably no true “standard of correctness” for this character, but the one she originally learned (same as the image above, but using simplified components 长 and 马) seems to be the most widely accepted version.