Boing Boing: American "Japgrish" tattoos

Friday, April 9, 2004

American "Japgrish" tattoos

It's all well and good to snigger at "Engrish" -- weird, random Englishoid phrases printed on Japanese garmets and packaging, but check this out: the Chicago Tribune went out and looked at the "Japanese" characters tattooed on five Chicagoans and had them translated, then compared the results with what the bearers thought their ink meant.

* What he thinks his tattoo says: "strength" and "courage."
* What it actually says: The left part of the symbol appears to say "dog," while the right part conveys something along the lines of "time moving into the past." Smushed together, the two symbols amount to gibberish.

Link (via MeFi)

posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:46:18 AM permalink | Other blogs' comments

suggest a link \| defeat censorware \| rss \| archives \| t-shirts \| digital emporium \| podcast feed \| mark \| cory \| david \| xeni \| john
Support Bloggers' Rights! HOWTO: Get a link posted to Boing Boing Boing Boing Mobile powered by Winksite Fark rules! This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License permitting non-commercial sharing with attribution. Boing Boing is a trademark of Happy Mutants LLC in the United States [and other countries]. Stats (About our stats) defeat censorware Policies Our first five years' worth of posts in one file	Friday, April 9, 2004 American "Japgrish" tattoos It's all well and good to snigger at "Engrish" -- weird, random Englishoid phrases printed on Japanese garmets and packaging, but check this out: the Chicago Tribune went out and looked at the "Japanese" characters tattooed on five Chicagoans and had them translated, then compared the results with what the bearers thought their ink meant. * What he thinks his tattoo says: "strength" and "courage." * What it actually says: The left part of the symbol appears to say "dog," while the right part conveys something along the lines of "time moving into the past." Smushed together, the two symbols amount to gibberish. Link (via MeFi) posted by Cory Doctorow at 11:46:18 AM permalink \| Other blogs' comments Email this entry to: Your email address: Message (optional):	Boing Boing Sponsored by: Your Text Ad Here Get BB by email: