I have a question...
Apr. 24th, 2004 06:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
conuly
Occasionally, in ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
latin, people show up asking for some translation for a tattoo. Why? Do you really want a cheesy sentiment (most of them are) forever on your body in a dead language you don't even speak? Do you honestly want to spend the rest of your life not only translating your tattoo to everyone but explaining that no, you don't actually speak Latin, some people in a Livejournal community translated it for you? Is it worth the risk that somebody will deliberately tell you something profane/funny just for the laugh (like the Japanese tattoo artist did with stupid white kids who wanted "something cool in Japanese" on their bodies...) I mean, what's the point? Why not just get it in English? That's the language you speak, after all.
latin, people show up asking for some translation for a tattoo. Why? Do you really want a cheesy sentiment (most of them are) forever on your body in a dead language you don't even speak? Do you honestly want to spend the rest of your life not only translating your tattoo to everyone but explaining that no, you don't actually speak Latin, some people in a Livejournal community translated it for you? Is it worth the risk that somebody will deliberately tell you something profane/funny just for the laugh (like the Japanese tattoo artist did with stupid white kids who wanted "something cool in Japanese" on their bodies...) I mean, what's the point? Why not just get it in English? That's the language you speak, after all.
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 08:09 pm (UTC)I totally agree 100% that getting a tattoo that one doesn't understand the *meaning* of is pretty stupid. Although I guess one could still argue "but I just think it's pretty".
But I'd say that a person who makes a decision (as I did) to get something that is custom art (the calligrapher is an artist, and we have the original artwork of the tattoo to hang on the wall) as well as having some deeper meaning isn't necessarily "silly". There have been symbols throughout human history, and what they represent is the point, eh?
Ohm is a good example. Or the Eye of Osirus (which was also, if I am not mistaken, an egyptian "letter" in heiroglyphics).
I'd like to see the butterfly wings! You mean like, big ones on your shoulders? :-)
no subject
Date: 2004-04-24 11:08 pm (UTC)That's going right to an amazing tattoo artist who lives about four hours from here, too. Not allowed to get it until I move out. ::crosses fingers.::
I actually don't know what the Eye or Osiris means, but I see it a lot (or is it the Eye or Ra? One of them). Yes it's pretty, I just can't imagine putting something on your body when you don't know what it means, or you don't agree with the sentiments!