Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT
WCDT - 6-10 September 2010 (1746-1750)
Near Lurker:
--- Quote from: Akima on 12 Sep 2010, 04:47 ---
--- Quote from: raoullefere on 12 Sep 2010, 03:14 ---Do think about what you're doing when getting yourself inscribed. <snip> I recall wondering when I read that one if Raven's tat actually said "Goofy Big-Uddered Girl."
--- End quote ---
Anyone even toying with the idea of getting a tattoo in Chinese or Japanese characters should read the blog Hanzi Smatter. With any luck it will put them off the idea entirely.
--- End quote ---
I've never understood how people screw things like that up. In the information age, it can't be that hard to find and print out the proper characters for the artist. If it's a full sentence, it's one thing, but most of those aren't.
Akima:
--- Quote from: Is it cold in here? on 12 Sep 2010, 09:57 ---Wonder if Raven's Kanji tattoo means anything embarrassing. Is it even an actual character?
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It is hard to see from the "fourth wall" viewpoint angle, but it is two characters. It actually looks like the modern Chinese for "princess": 公主 (gōngzhǔ) with bad calligraphy (which might have been Jeph's point, of course). Hanzi Smatter has a page discussing Raven's tattoo.
--- Quote from: Near Lurker on 12 Sep 2010, 12:09 ---I've never understood how people screw things like that up. In the information age, it can't be that hard to find and print out the proper characters for the artist. If it's a full sentence, it's one thing, but most of those aren't.
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Beware. In Chinese at least, it is not quite that simple. Chinese characters (hànź) are not isolated, unique "bricks" of meaning, but often have multiple meanings clarified by other characters with which they are written. This is no different from words in English; "air" and "plane" used alone have perfectly legitimate meanings (the gas we breathe, expressing an idea; a tool for smoothing wood, a concept in geometry) but put them together as "airplane" and you get a word only loosely associated with the meanings of the individual words. There are "rules" about how hanzi are put together which, if ignored, make the combination look... odd.
J:
i love that blog. i wonder if there's anyone out there you can send whatever you want tattooed, and they will translate and send you back the correct characters in the correct placement.
tomart:
--- Quote from: J on 12 Sep 2010, 18:41 ---i love that blog. i wonder if there's anyone out there you can send whatever you want tattooed, and they will translate and send you back the correct characters in the correct placement.
--- End quote ---
Hey, that's a great idea for a modern, internet-age business... 8-)
And thanks, Akima, for that good explanation why it's not that simple. air-plane, indeed.
raoullefere:
To me, it's an extremely silly notion. What's the big deal about having a character imprinted on you that you don't understand, that may or may not be correct, or that (possibly) might be a concept that only a master of those characters could properly express and the same properly understand?
Better far to simply design some symbol that you do understand, that has real meaning for you. If that's a word, then choose one you understand, and assign your own secret meaning to it, if you like. Chinese writing does not make a word magical—all words in all languages have that same 'magic.' I was joking about Odin before, but the old Norse had the right of it. Using symbols to represent something that's not even 'there' is high magic indeed.
On the other hand, if you truly crave to sport an obscure symbol or two on your hide, get something written on you in Linear B. It has some meaning you can look up, it'll be just as obscure to you, and the chances of running across someone who can actually dispute whatever meaning you believe it has with any authority will be dramatically decreased, since all the true 'expert' writers are very safely dead.
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