The six tattooed characters are from an advertisement flyer for Sakura brand kitchen exhaust system, which means:

買櫻花

With purchase of Sukura system,

送油網

Free oil screen/trap

from: Rob B.
to: "tiangotlost@gmail.com"
date: Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 9:53 AM
subject: Help?

I've always wondered what my tat really says....

it supposed to be "wicked clown".

I don't even know what language it is.



Alan and I have figured out where the guy got "wicked clown."

歹 alone can also mean "bad," "evil" or "wicked", and 丑 appears in the word 丑角 (the simplified variant of 醜角) which does mean "clown" or "joker."

But there is no way that 歹丑 means "wicked clown" so we still think the guy is an ass clown.

Alan spotted this photo in BME's Kanji tattoo gallery:



Despite the great calligraphy (calligraphy as in fancy artistic penmanship), there is a huge typo on this person's torso.

Bushido, the way of the warrior in Japanese is written as 武士道, not with 侍 in the middle. 侍 itself means samurai or warrior, but 武侍道 makes no sense in Japanese. Especially considering Bushido is a Japanese concept.

"Bullshitdo", the way of bullshit, would be more fitting.

from: d.h.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Sun, Sep 12, 2010 at 8:38 AM
subject: Here's one

This is supposed to mean passion. I don't think it does. In fact, i couldn't locate this configuration of radicals at all. What are your thoughts?



It means "hot, middle", which does not mean "passion".

This tattoo also reminded me the terrible hip-hop song by Nelly, Hot in Here.

from: Pb.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Sep 17, 2010 at 8:42 AM
subject: My tattoo..

Hey hi Tian.. stumbled over ur blog so thought i should hav my tattoo meaning verified.. I asked the artist to put the my birth date that is 24..
I would appreciate ur feedback..

Thanks
Pb..



The bottom character does not exist in Chinese or Japanese vocabulary.

肆 is used as four (banker's anti-fraud numeral)

from: jeffrey f.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 12:16 PM

Can you tell me what these letters are? Supposedly they are the chinese letters m.a.w, intials not a word but I don't believe that's what they are. Thank you very much for your help.



Jeffrey is another sucker of this fake Alphabet-to-Chinese font.

from: Andi F.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Tue, Aug 24, 2010 at 11:31 AM
subject: Kanji translations

Hey there! I totally LOVE your blog!

ok, so I have 2 different Kanji tattoos. I researched them myself, and was after the Japanese meanings of the characters. I didn't trust a tattoo shop book for either one. The fire/Ice tattoo is supposed to me "to be devoted". The kanji is composed out of the negative space. I was after a verb form, and I am most worried about this one.

Tell me I did it right!! Otherwise, back to the needle I go!

Thanks,

A



Granted this tattoo intended to be read from Japanese perspective, but 沒頭 literally means "no head" in Chinese, in other words "lack of common sense".

Alan has the following to add:

The tattoo is evidently 没頭る, which appears to be a "slangy" way of writing the Japanese verb "hamaru" which in itself is a slang way to say "be a fan of," "be absorbed in" or maybe "be devoted to" something like a rock band or a manga or some other pop culture phenomenon.

Originally, the verb hamaru was written 嵌る or 填る (or sometimes ハマる), but evidently due to the influence of the noun 没頭 [bottō], which means "devotion to" or "absorption in" something, people started writing the word like 没頭る but still pronouncing it hamaru. Perhaps one reason why people started writing the word with these new characters is because both of the old ones 嵌 and 填 were removed from common use in Japanese.

This use of different characters to write words is called 当て字 (ateji) in Japanese. These 当て字 can be used on a whim and there are no particular rules except what becomes popular.

Without common sense, indeed!