to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 7:27 AM
subject: Tattoo
Hi!
I got a tattoo few years ago, when i was young and now I think I really didn't think it through. In tattoo there is cat (looks like a rat), so I started to wonder if the mark with the cat is really real. Does it say anything, is it false?
When I took it, it had meaning for me. Now I can't even remember that word what it was supposed to meant. I've checked all the possibles I know it could be, but haven't found that mark anywhere. I know, I've might been a stupid and I really don't understand how I forget it. Maybe it was that I didn't really understand what it meant and I just trusted the man who tattooed it.
I've read too much stories about people having stupid, even insulting or meaningless tattoos, so I just want to know if mine is real.
I guess, good thing is no one japanese or Chinese haven't ever stared it or laughed:D
Thank you very much in advance. I hope you can help me. I put the picture of tattoo for you.
Taija N.
It looks like 名 to me, what do you think?
It could also be a (really) poorly done 各 perhaps?
ReplyDeleteI wonder if she can get that botched character turned into "沼狸," "狐獴," or "细尾獴." Then she can tell everyone that it's a meerkat.
ReplyDeleteAlso...the animal looks like a squirrel to me :)
ReplyDeleteIt can be: 名 (Name), 各 (Each) or タロ, the word "Taro" written in Katakana. It's a popular male name given to first born children, though it needs an ウ (u) or a ー (lenghtening line) to write it correctly, if not, it becomes taro (a root vegetable). This might be a meaning to be worried about, but the Japanese mostly know taro as 里芋 (Satoimo) so they might not notice.
ReplyDeleteit looks like a very strange rodent sitting at some sort of stylized drafting table.
ReplyDeleteIt's either 各 or 名, and I think a native Japanese would assume it's the former because it looks much more like it.
ReplyDelete