Tuesday, April 28, 2009

Saturday, April 25, 2009

    tattoo_ling2si3bu4qu1
    http://www.wickedink.com.au/gallery:48:Oriental:image:132

    Alan and I are confused by this tattoo. We are not sure if it is correct or not, simply because we have never seen this idiom.

    From the last three characters, we can sort of guessing this person wanted "death before dishonor". However, Chinese idiom for it would be:

    寧死不屈

    凌辱 is used in both Chinese & Japanese to mean an insult, indignity, disgrace or violation, even to assault a woman. So we can sort of see how might imply "dishonor" and 不屈 does mean "fortitude" or "indomitable".

    But we simply do not understand the grammar or syntax of 凌死不屈, since could also mean "pure; virtuous; insult; maltreat, encroach; soar; thick ice".

    It simply sounds like the words "dishonor" "death" and "indomitable" run together.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

    Another winner from Checkoutmyink.com with caption stating the three characters are his girlfriend's initials.



    Apparently this man did not receive the memo about there is no such thing as "Chinese initials for English names".

    tattoo_shu4yong3tian2

    Beyond that, we have no clue what exactly the initials are supposedly to be.

    Update: Reader Becki and others have noticed the initials may be "LBP" (somehow it reminds me of O. P. P. aka. Other People's Pussy by Naughty By Nature) written in a font that mimics pseudo-Chinese, i.e. The Choy Suey Font.

    By the way, chop suey is not an authentic Chinese dish, rather according to legend it is from table scraps.

    Chop Fooey
    Mental Floss magazine, May-June 2009 issue, page 19.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

    Alan and I spotted this "naughty" tattoo in Checkoutmyink.com,


    http://checkoutmyink.com/tattoos/lucretia/naughty-1

    However, the middle character is completely wrong.

    tattoo_wan2pi2de

    Actually would be sufficient to be used as adjective, where is an adverb. Addition to that, the tattooed "naughty" does not have same innuendo in English. It is usually used to describe bratty children, as I would call them,

    crotch sneeze fuck trophies.

Saturday, April 4, 2009

    from: Roger P.
    to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
    date: Mon, Mar 23, 2009 at 8:39 AM
    subject: Co-worker's Tattoo

    Hi there,

    I was talking about your website with a co-worker of mine, in reference to one of your articles. She wanted me to find out if the tattoo she got really means what she wanted it to mean (obviously!). Here is a pic of her tattoo. She thinks it means "Bitch." What does it look like to you?

    Thanks,

    ~Roger

    Co-worker's Tattoo

    Why would anyone wanted to label themselves in such negative way?

    Typically bitch as noun is translated as and 婊子 as slang.

    What this woman tattooed really means "cheap whore".

Friday, April 3, 2009

    Reader Alanna K. tipped Alan and I about this young lady's tattoo,

    Before I got my cherry blossom branch on CheckOutMyInk.com

    Cherry Blossom on CheckOutMyInk.com

    The captions of both photo said was Chinese for "Angel", which is also her name.

    If she is referring the tattoo was transliteration from Mandarin Chinese, then the correct version would be 安琪儿.

    If it was English-Chinese contextual translation, then it should be 天使.