Monday, May 31, 2010

This photo was posted in Checkoutmyink.com with title, "Kanji - No Fear".


I have never seen 否怖 used as "no fear". Typically 無畏 is used.

9 comments:

  1. Interestingly, Google Translate gives the former as "no terror", and the latter as "no awe".

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  2. Hi Guys this blog is very interesting!
    Agreed with Tian,in doubt with the reasoning behind 否怖.Although there is practice of “double negative” in Chinese Syntax,否&無 both means "No/Not" generally.But the strangest point is the tattooist seems pick up the worst choice neglecting the Chinese combination orz...
    By the way,I've seen people tattooed character"御手洗"(Laugh)

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  3. Not sure how to send links directly to Tian, so this is off-topic for the post. But I laughed when I saw this one:

    http://www.checkoutmyink.com/tattoos/megamace/334198

    Year ten-nine-eight-six?

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  4. Anon- That is hilarious!
    十九八六年 is literally the "year nineteen eight six" which is nothing like the way to write the year in Chinese or Japanese. In Japanese, Western years are usually written like 1986年 but I guess that would be sort of boring for a tattoo, so if they really wanted to use kanji, I guess they could try 一九八六年 or perhaps the extremely formal 千九百八十六年.

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  5. Sounds from the caption as if the poor guy was trying to go for Chinese. If one really wanted to write 1986 in a formal Japanese way, it would be 昭和六十一年 (Showa 61).

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  6. Or perhaps: 壱千九百八拾六年

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  7. On top of that the quality of the tattoo leaves much to be desired.

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  8. That is horrible, horrible penmanship. Yeesh.

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  9. 壱千九百八拾六年 would be incorrect Japanese. While 万/萬 (ten thousand) must be preceded by 一/壱 (one) when expressing a number between 10,000 and 19,999, 千 (thousand) does not need to be. Using the alternate numerals 1986 would be 千九百八拾六年 (without the leading 壱).

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