proponents say that the chinese writing system has been changing for millennia: it passed through the oracle script, bronzeware script, seal script and clerical script stages. moreover, the majority of simplified characters are drawn from conventional abbreviated forms that have been used in handwriting for centuries such as the use of 礼 instead of 禮, and some simplified characters are in fact restorations of ancient forms that had become more complicated over time. for instance, the character for "cloud" was originally 云 in early inscriptions , but the character was borrowed to write a homophonous word meaning "to say". to disambiguate the two uses of the character, the "rain" radical (雨) was added on top when it meant "cloud", forming the current traditional character 雲. the homophonous word meaning "to say", however, has become archaic in modern chinese, though 雲 continues to be used for "cloud". the simplified version simply restores 云 to its original use as "cloud".