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I was looking at the picture of a newspaper during the times of the Hibiya
riot (1905) and it took me a while to find the headline word 出鱈目{でたらめ}. In
fact, in every dictionary I have checked so far the kanji 鱈 is written as I am
typing it, with the left part being simply 魚. However, as you can see in the
picture the bottom part of 魚 seems to be 大 instead of 灬.

I could not find any dictionary where the kanji is written as in the picture
below. Is it just a typographical difference? Are 大 and 灬 somehow related and
I just don't know about it?

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9iFHe.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/9iFHe.png)
CC BY-SA 3.0
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question
kanji radicals
About the kanji 鱈 where 魚's bottom is written as 大
It's a nonstandard variant (異体字) of 鱈.

In modern kanji dictionaries, 火 and 灬 (れんが) are usually considered different.
But etymologically, [these are the same
radical](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E7%81%AB%E9%83%A8), both representing
fire.

> **脚にあるときは、「灬」の形に変わる。**

魚 is a [象形文字 (hieroglyph) made from the picture of
fish](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E9%AD%9A#Glyph_origin), and the four
dots are not related to fire. 魚 is a radical in its own right. But the
character 魚 was sometimes written with 火 at the bottom anyway. The bottom part
of 点 is sometimes replaced by 大, too. ~~This is probably etymologically not
correct, but was used~~ (according to @sazarando's answer, looks like 魚 with 火
was used in ancient China, too).

One article says 魚 with 大 at the bottom was preferred by sushi restaurants
where they are expected to serve "raw and big" pieces of fish meat.

See:

  * [「魚」や「点」の「よつてん」は「大」と書くことがありますが、「黒」や「薫」の「よつてん」を「大」とは書かないように思います。なぜなのでしょうか？](http://kanjibunka.com/kanji-faq/old-faq/q0196/)
  * [【火, 灬】（ひ,ひへん,れんが,よつてん,れっか）を部首に持つ漢字](http://dict.v01.jp/bushu/letters/86/)
  * [Unicode Han Character '(J) nonstandard variant of 魚 U+9B5A, fish'](http://www.fileformat.info/info/unicode/char/29d4b/index.htm)
  * [GlyphWiki u9c48 (鱈)](http://glyphwiki.org/wiki/u9c48)
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answer
It's an older but common variant of the fish radical.

(The entries below are for the character「蘇」which is much more common
than「鱈」but illustrates the same development)

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ngmrC.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/ngmrC.png)

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/f3y1S.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/f3y1S.png)

[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6rNaR.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/6rNaR.png)

Looks like it is related this way:

> a. 火 ⇒ 大  
>  b. 火 ⇒ 灬

  * a. was used commonly in the past, but now b. is more popular.
  * One possible reason for this is that changing to 大 reduces the total strokes of the character by one, and many people are very concered about the "auspiciousness" of the total stroke count number.
  * @naruto makes a very good point that the「火」shape that appears in the older variants of the fish radical is not related to fire because the fish radical is a complete pictograph in it's own right. In other words, it's not made up of smaller parts, so any change to the _shape_ of the fish radical wouldn't really alter the meaning. 

<http://www.cidianwang.com/shufa/su7387.htm>  
<http://www.guoxuedashi.com/zidian/8607.html>  
<http://www.shufazidian.com/>
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answer