Friday, February 17, 2006

Mr. Green Thumb


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A60211/high/bmepb219252.jpg

The best translation attempt I can come up with for is "earth knowledge talent power" or "soil expert". The third character in Chinese also means “ruta graveolens”, a type of herb used to keep insects away.

I am not sure if “Mr. Green Thumb” got the tattoo because his agricultural abilities or he thought they are the translation of “Jesus”.

FYI, “Jesus” in Chinese is 耶穌 and イエス in Japanese.



7 comments:

  1. What's the literal translation of "Jesus"?

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  2. I think Tian means "Transliteration". You could translate Jesus into 神子 or something like that. But Chinese and Japanese use phonetic transliterations to approximate the sounds.

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  3. Or he might be other kind of herbal greenthumb. You know, the one for cancer and Cypress Hill. ;)

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  4. From behindthename.com:

    English form of Iesous, which was the Greek form of the Aramaic name Yeshua. Yeshua is itself a contracted form of Yehoshua, which meant "YAHWEH is salvation"

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  5. Perhaps it means "The soil recognizes the power of Ruta graveolens"?

    The transliteration of Jesus is 耶穌 (Yesu).

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  6. The first character could also be 士, making it something like "warrior knowledge art power".

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  7. ruta graveolens is also a massive purgative/laxative. My high school english teacher taught us that the phrase "you'll rue the day" developed from an old english practice of eating the herb as penance.

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