本文認為甲金文□字應釋為「弘」，□、□、□則都是「強」字。西周時「強」作「□」、弘作□；進入東周後，□的斜撇可能已經脫離弓體作「□」並延續到漢代，晉、楚系文字中的「強」因而加上區別符號作「□」。但漢代「強」字使用來自秦系文字的「強」，遂造成漢代的「弘」字（□）、「引」（□）字分別和西周以前的「強」字（□）、「弘」字（□）同形，學者如果沒有考慮古文字在長期演變中「異代同形」的現象，僅以字形的相似做為考釋的主要線索，即可能造成誤釋。 除了上述字形上的辨析，本文也分別解釋了□、□所在的金甲文辭例，指出在各辭例中，將上述二形分別釋為「弘」、「強」都比釋為「引」、「弘」更為合理適切，宜可做為□、□二形考釋的重要憑證。

This article proposes that the oracle bone and bronze script character □ be interpreted as 弘, and that □, □, and □ all be interpreted as 強. In the Western Zhou Dynasty, 強 was written as □ and 弘 as □. As it developed in the Eastern Zhou, the upward slanting element on the right of □ might have been separated off from the 弓 element; as a result, 弘 was written as □--a convention which was passed on to the Han Dynasty. On the other hand, since 強 was also written as □ in the Eastern Zhou, to make a distinction, in the writing systems of Jin and Chu dynasties an extra element was added to the original form to make the new character form □. In the Han dynasty, the 強 character was taken from the writing system of Qin. This led to the confusion between 弘 (written as □) of the Han and 強 (written as □) of the Western Zhou, as well as between 引 (written as □) of the Han and 弘 (written as □) of the Western Zhou. The confusion was due to the fact that different words might take the same character form. The character evolution can be seen clearly in the following table: