An Industry of Cool… or not.

People, please do not blindly trust a tattoo artst to write something in any language.  Verify, double check, call it to commitee, do whatever you can to ensure that iit is exactly what you want.  Meaning, spelling, etc.  I have latin tattoo’d on my body, and I spent days checking and double checking that it was correct prior to having it drawn up.  I know some really smart tattoo artists, but when it comes to foreign languages that you don’t speak fluently, check your work.

Tattoo horror story…can I sue?

Los Angeles (CA). Viewed 3038 times. Posted 7 days ago in Contracts / Agreements. Flag this as objectionable

I went to a tattoo studio and asked for Chinese characters that say “courage, strength and unity”; the tattoo artist assured me he was a native speaker and would translate the sentence accurately.

I thought the tattoo looked great, but when I showed it to my Chinese friend he said it meant “he who loves men”. There’s also a character that’s not even a Chinese character at all, but resembles a dancing phallus.

I got really upset, to say the least, and several other people have confirmed the meaning…

What am I supposed to do now? Can I sue the artist? The shop? My girlfriend if she was in on it (she referred me to the artist, and I think she may be cheating on me with him)?

Go here to see the original with some of the answers.  I am still amazed that people get characters from other languages that have such dubious translations, or multiple translations, depending on region.  It blows the mind, it does.

[via woot]