Tuesday, June 7, 2005

"I don't know"


tat_idontknow.jpg

Why waste the money and effort to state the obvious?
Posted by at

24 comments:

  1. AlvordismJune 7, 2005 at 4:23 PM

    wow, Tian, that was the best response i could have read.
    I've been taking Chinese classes for about 6 months, and know how to say and write "I don't know", but this tattoo takes irony to a new (sub) level.

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  2. AnonymousJune 7, 2005 at 4:54 PM

    判らない！！！

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  3. AnonymousJune 7, 2005 at 5:23 PM

    I like the idea of this tat. Two common ways of saying it both do not use the "I".

    不知道

    (literally) it's not clear: 不清楚

    Just put 我 in front if you want the "I"

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  4. AnonymousJune 7, 2005 at 6:06 PM

    (´･ω･`)分かんない

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  5. MattJune 7, 2005 at 9:44 PM

    That would be one hanzi tattoo I could support wholeheartedly. Best idea ever.

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  6. AnonymousJune 8, 2005 at 12:54 AM

    I was thinking 謎 for "mystery." That wouldn't make a terrible tattoo.

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  7. AnonymousJune 8, 2005 at 5:44 AM

    Why the hell do people want to permanently mark themselves so they can have a pointless, ironic conversation piece? After the first two or three times this guy explains the tatoo at a party or something, everyone around him is going to think he's a pathetic loser desparate for attention.

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  8. BrendanJune 8, 2005 at 1:58 PM

    Yeah, this reminds me of how a few years ago I really, really wanted to get a tattoo of "茄子" as a joke, until after 30 seconds' thought I realized that getting a tattoo as a punchline to a joke is even dumber than tattooing in general.

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  9. GlennJune 8, 2005 at 11:28 PM

    I guess it must have sounded like a good idea after a night of heavy drinking, or some other form of substance abuse.

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  10. Julian GrybowskiJune 9, 2005 at 3:56 AM

    さぁね。

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  11. AnonymousJune 9, 2005 at 11:49 PM

    Um, last time I checked, ひらがな counts neither as Hanzi nor "Chinese characters" as requested by the author of the email. So, as fun as it is to conjugate 分かる, it's not particularly pertinent to the topic.

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  12. AnonymousJune 10, 2005 at 4:33 PM

    http://www.tcp-ip.or.jp/~tengjing/
    hanyu/chengyu/yiqiaobutong.html

    Phil Robyn
    Univ. of California, Berkeley
    probyn@berkeley.edu

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  13. BrendanJune 10, 2005 at 7:36 PM

    'Yiqiao-butong' (sorry - on a computer without Chinese input) is an interesting suggestion, but it strikes me as being more about one's knowledge of how to do something, rather than factual knowledge. Maybe 'yi wu suo zhi?'

    Also, to the anonymous poster who said that hiragana don't count as characters: yeah, but do you really think it makes a difference, given the target audience?

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  14. AnonymousJune 11, 2005 at 8:31 AM

    Not to make this too academic but I think it fascinating what people find acceptable and unacceptable as body art and modifications. What about addictive drugs that permanently adjust your chemistry or merely give you cancer? Or sports that have a good chance of permanent damage: how many of you have bad knees or ankles from extreme or even unextreme sports? What about writing about your sex life in a blog that anyone can read? It is almost as permanent as a tat, but usually a little less obvious.

    But one poor guy comes along and wants to make his body "remarkable" and everyone thinks he represents the world's stupidity. If you do something ironically stupid is it still stupid? If you don't kill yourself by smoking or drinking or skiing but get a silly tat instead, how dumb is that?

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  15. AnonymousJune 11, 2005 at 1:26 PM

    The previous poster needn't worry about being "too academic"...His tirade was pointless and off-topic. No one here is defending drug use, and trumpeting one's ignorance with a tattoo saying "I don't know" is SPECTACULARLY STUPID.

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  16. BrendanJune 11, 2005 at 1:52 PM

    Sure, whatever floats your boat. I myself fear pain and can't think of anything I'd want more-or-less permanently on me, and tend to tire of jokes pretty quickly. Perhaps some people are into all of those things.

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  17. AnonymousJune 13, 2005 at 6:32 AM

    anon, what exactly makes it stupid? imo, to tattoo "i don't know" in a commonly (mis)used language for tattoos does more to make fun of those of who try to tattoo the language seriously with no understanding of it. is that not what most people do on this blog?

    and don't feed me that "permanent" crap, caching and archiving makes these comments as permanent as any tattoo. hell, it would be far easier to remove a tattoo then to try to remove all traces of something you post on the internet.

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  18. VinceJune 13, 2005 at 9:56 PM

    Why would someone want to do this? Wo bu zhi dao!

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  19. AnonymousJune 22, 2005 at 12:48 PM

    For a tattoo this is dumb. But it would make a great t-shirt (yeah Glen, for at a heavy night drinking). I would like a sigle character or phrase saying 'dont-know' or 'hmmmm...' or 'what is the meaning of those chinese signs' :-) . When the joke is over after meating everybody I know, the t-shirt can be used to clean my bike, and I have had an original t-shirt...

    I now own a t-shirt with a print (self made) exactly on te position on my arm where I have a tattoo of a friendly dragon. A picture of a dragon, not chinese characters. :-)
    This shirt is also funny as long as it lasts.

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  20. MandyJuly 20, 2005 at 11:21 AM

    I like the t-shirt idea. Maybe the original poster should try that for a while, and see if he likes it over the long run before getting inked.

    ReplyDelete
  21. AnonymousSeptember 18, 2005 at 9:49 AM

    The guy didn't ask if anyone approves of the tat, he just wants to know how to correctly translate "I don't know".
    Maybe those of you that disprove of this so vehemently should think about a t-shirt or tat that reads "Judge not lest ye be judged".

    ReplyDelete
  22. rizuJanuary 11, 2006 at 10:30 PM

    What a stupid idea for a tattoo. Though, I have a nerdy Latin t-shirt that says "nescio" (I don't know).

    However, it's not permanently etched into my skin!!

    ReplyDelete
  23. Erik 'SiLo' RogersApril 14, 2006 at 4:21 AM

    If he wants to be an asshole, he might as well just get 什么 instead so that when people ask him he can just say "what?" over and over.

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  24. AnonymousAugust 11, 2007 at 6:23 PM

    Mandy: I think that's actually a good idea. Mainly because it is a gag, and as mentioned, gags can get old.

    Erik: I actually find that idea kind of funny. Then again, it also reminds me of an in-joke between me and my friends which pre-dated the whole WWF/WWE "What?!" joke.

    Brendan: Nice beef with tatts as a whole. Despite their long, and significant history in various cultures. Despite their personal significance to many who get them. Just goes to show that railing against one brand of ignorance doesn't mean you're immune to all of them.

    ReplyDelete

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