The best (?) ever said 狂瀉 (“FRENZIED DIARRHEA,” to the extent it means anything), which a commenter on the Hanzismatter blog was eventually able to reverse-engineer as being intended to mean “MAD FLOW.” - ThreadSky

bokane.org • 186 days ago

The best (?) ever said 狂瀉 (“FRENZIED DIARRHEA,” to the extent it means anything), which a commenter on the Hanzismatter blog was eventually able to reverse-engineer as being intended to mean “MAD FLOW.”

Reposted from Daryl Sng

I was at a Great Wolf Lodge water park recently and noticed how many people have terrible Chinese character tattoos. I should open a side business where I do Zoom consultations on choosing the right characters and typeface for your Chinese tattoo

(Image taken from Reddit r/translator)

Comments

jamesabenn.bsky.social•186 days ago

This is the week in the semester when I introduce students to Hanzismatter. It’s something that usually stays with them after the course ends.

bokane.org•185 days ago

It’s a public service.

hushuo.bsky.social•185 days ago

I usually wait a few weeks, but I agree. It's critical information in the public good.

edwardw2.bsky.social•184 days ago

this person has the name of hexagam 36 tattooed on them

bitdizzy.bsky.social•184 days ago

good hexagram!

skidoo55555.bsky.social•135 days ago

There are certain rules every parent must teach their children. NEVER GET A TATTOO IN A LANGUAGE THAT YOU CAN'T READ.

astigg1.bsky.social•185 days ago

I remember the actual owner of that tattoo found her way to that post and explained that that meaning was almost exactly what she wanted, and intentionally that weird. Hanzismatter is great but occasionally too critical of the tattoo owner.

bokane.org•185 days ago

Oh wow, I hadn’t seen that part! Been ages since I last looked at Hanzismatter — but yeah, from what I remember, Tian was generally starting from the assumption that people had no idea what they’d got tattooed on themselves. Which, to be fair, does generally seem to be the case…

cmbnugent.bsky.social•185 days ago

I appreciated the effort (I've also not looked at the site in years), but he really didn't know his classical or 成語. I saw him identify well-known classical phrases as "gibberish" more than once (including, oddly, 順其自然).

bokane.org•185 days ago

Yeah, IIRC I e-mailed him about that a few times. Sort of suspect there's an inverse correlation between "knowledge of classical Chinese" and "desire to get a Chinese tattoo," but someone should throw out the question at the next AAS and see who's got ink.

sudasana.bsky.social•185 days ago

politeicecream.bsky.social•186 days ago

More Chinese depts around the country should also partner up to have a minor in applied art. Tattoo.

jimmytwohands.bsky.social•184 days ago

A friend of mine spent a semester in Japan in college and a number of the students got tattoos of Japanese words and most turned out to be bad translations, but the worst was a girl who got her dad’s pet name for her as a kid (I think it was “little jewel”) that actually translated to “pubes”

socio-steve.bsky.social•186 days ago

Remember years ago when people would make fun of "Engrish" on t-shirts?

jhaygood.bsky.social•185 days ago

We were cleaning yesterday and my wife came across an old Japanese screen for printing that I got at some antiquities shop eons ago. I never knew what words of wisdom it had on it, but now we have Google Translate!

bokane.org•185 days ago

This is such a cool feature!

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