from: Joey L. 

to: tiangotlost@gmail.com 

date: Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 3:22 PM 

subject: Lost in translation 

Can you please translate. 

Not another “gibberish tattoo”!

Obviously it’s supposed to be JOEY from the handy-dandy cheat sheet to the bogus gibberish font.

from: Alan Siegrist
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Apr 13, 2012 at 11:52 PM
subject: Woman tree

Hi Tian, Hope you are still enjoying Austria.

Have you seen this tattoo?

The character is actually the Japanese katakana ホ (ho) not 木 (ki, tree). The mistaken use of ‘ho’ is quite unfortunate considering the woman as both subject and canvas. And yes, the hip-hop slang meaning of ‘ho’ (whore) is known in Japan and written with the same character.


http://www.ratemyink.com/?action=ssp&pid=103667

Back in 2005, I saw a photo in Flickr titled "Cindy, a beautiful canvas."

Fast forward to 2012, Dr. Victor Mair met the young lady in person:

So I asked Cindy what she thought the tattooed symbols running down her neck and spine meant. She replied:

The bottom two were supposed to be success… then respect.

Oh well. Works either way. It is what it is. You can put whatever name you want.

Queen OF The World is what I prefer.

I followed up by asking Cindy what she thought the second, very unusual, symbol meant. She said, "Oh, that's just a cross for Jesus."

Tentatively, this is what I had to work with:

1. mǔ 母 ("mother")

2. zǐ 子 ("child"), or perhaps some kind of cross

3. wù 物 ("thing, object")

4. guì 贵 ("precious; expensive")

With considerable effort, I could get that to mean "Mother and child are precious things." But I was not satisfied with this interpretation, both because of my uncertainty over the second symbol and because it required me to accept a strained interpretation of the final two characters.

(Continue reading at Language Log)

from: dulce
to: "tiangotlost@gmail.com"
date: Thu, Dec 29, 2011 at 12:19 PM
subject: a question/ tatoo

dear sir

today I met this man, who came to fix my car.
when I saw his arm, tattoed , I did ask him the meaning of the word and he said: this is the name of his son, called: João Victor (something like John Victor in English)

Is he right? I don´t think so....

best regards

dulce



It is completely gibberish, not even correct with the gibberish font.

Slightly off topic here.

Image above was posted in CheckoutMyInk.com. The tattoo is Korean Hangul (Korean alphabet), but upside-side down, of course.

Who or what is "Park Noh Sik"?

In recent issue of GQ magazine (US edition), I came across this ad for The Art of Shaving:



The Chinese translation of "The Ambassador of Smooth" as 平稳大使 is contextually incorrect.

平稳 refers to stability, not related to physical surface condition, which shaving is about. Nor the American English slang usage of "smooth" in terms of finesse.

平稳大使 would be better suited as ad slogan for a physical therapy clinic, than hawking male grooming products.

from: Elsa M.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Nov 6, 2011 at 10:41 PM
subject: Hanzismatter-worthy shirt

I actually laughed out loud when I saw the Chinese on this shirt. Thought I would share. Some smart alec designer had finally had enough.




Presumably the intended sentence is:

這是傳統中文的寫法

which means "this is traditional Chinese way of writing",

with missing "文" & "的".