Tattoos are interesting, mysterious, fascinating and a great form of art. For a few years now, it’s been in fashion to get a tattoo of a word, alphabet or letter that has a special meaning for the person in question, but in different language. First in popularity are Japanese and Chinese languages, but it is common to see tattoos in various other languages including Sanskrit, Arabic, and Hebrew, among others.
The major reason of such popularity is the meaning behind the words, and the beauty of graphemes of these languages. Apart from that, the exotic and mysterious air which, one assumes, they give to the person who wears the tattoo.
However, like an attractive flower that sometimes turns out to be dangerous and poisonous, these tattoo designs may come with something more than a person has barged for. Oftentimes, such tattoos are selected and created without much research, which may turn out to be extremely embarrassing later. In this post, we will focus on popular designs and spellings errors that may make you look like an idiot (well, literally!).
The most common errors include –
The Wrong Meaning
This is among the most common errors. If you are getting a tattoo in other than your native language, the chances of a word or symbol with wrong meaning increase. A woman from Germany, for example, asked a tattoo artist to create a tattoo on her shoulder of the Chinese translation for ‘You are responsible forever for that which you tame,’ she got a tattoo which meant, ‘Chicken noodle soup.’
Appearance Disasters
Sometimes, we get a tattoo of a symbol because it looks appealing to us, without actually understanding its meaning. A male went to a tattoo shop in India and got a tattoo of this amazingly appealing symbol just to figure out that it meant poison in Chinese.
Right to Left, or Left To Right
In case of Arabic and Hebrew, which are written from right to left, it happens a lot of time that upon using a text processor to print a word or phrase that will become a permanent tattoo, the order of letters is changed, which can also change the meaning (especially in Arabic).
So, if you want to save yourself from embarrassment, we request that you please check with a professional translator before taking a ‘permanent’ decision.
Have any such disaster stories? Share in the comments section.