In the News
Sunday May 24, 2009
Hayden Panettiere's Misspelled Tattoo
The media is coming down hard on Miss Panettiere, calling her a moron for her misspelled tattoo, but it should be noted that she is not the first person to make such a mistake. Misspelled tattoos, especially when they are written in a language that the person doesn't speak or write themselves, happen very often and it is an extremely embarrassing mistake. Please learn from others' mistakes and triple-verify the spelling of any tattoo or just avoid ones that are in a foreign language you don't understand!
The media is coming down hard on Miss Panettiere, calling her a moron for her misspelled tattoo, but it should be noted that she is not the first person to make such a mistake. Misspelled tattoos, especially when they are written in a language that the person doesn't speak or write themselves, happen very often and it is an extremely embarrassing mistake. Please learn from others' mistakes and triple-verify the spelling of any tattoo or just avoid ones that are in a foreign language you don't understand!
Comments
A couple of years ago a friend (who is very fluent in Cantonese and Mandarin Chinese) and I were in a popular Baltimore tattoo shop.
My friend, who had been looking at a large decorative poster of kanji designs with English translations, turned to me and said “These aren’t right! That doesn’t mean ‘wife’ it means ‘whore’!” He pointed out several mistakes all of which would have been very offensive to anyone who actually read kanji.
I’m not sure what the solution is except to ask a friendly native speaker to translate for you whether it’s Spanish or Chinese.
The only way to get a tattoo in a different language that will be correct is to go to a person of the nature and get them to write it for you. My name is Noel Peace, i am the grandson of Eddie Peace who started tattooing in 1934 and also worked with Coleman for a few years in the mid 40’s. About 7 years ago, we ordered some Chinese letter sheets from a company and we put hundreds of them on hundreds of people. One day this dude came in that had got some of them, it was supposed to spell out “PEACE” but he said that he went to a local Chinese restaurant and everyone there told him that they didn’t know what it was and they wrote down peace for him on some paper. He was acting like a jerk and i can understand why. He demanded that he get his money back but he failed to read the sign in our shop stating that all sheets with Chinese symbols/lettering are bought from a company and we have no idea if they are what they say they are so get them at your own risk. My advice to anyone wanting to get this type of tattoo should do research themselves before getting them and i think that all tattoo artist that have these kind of sheets in their shop should also do research and see if they are really what they are supposed to be. Since that day, i removed all of the Chinese lettering from my walls and decided not to put them back up, after all, i would rather tattoo a traditional or new age design rather than a typical name on someone than have people give me a bad rep. peacevintagetattooflash.com