#tattoo fails

[j4ckme]

Found your next tatt!

[nic-214]

[vampiressmedic]

So yesterday I had an appointment with a highly recommend tattoo shop to begin my cartoon character calf sleeve. I had sent the picture in with my first character choice, stitch.

Now I specifically asked to the artist be comfortable doing this and have some experience doing them. They told me they had just the guy. I showed up early, with a mask on, followed their santizing procedure when I walked through the door. The artist was finishing up with another client as the door man had me fill out paperwork and go ahead and pay since they were a cash only operation. No biggie. Artist came out after cleaning his area and introduced himself, then we played around with the stencil on my leg for a minute. Everything felt great. I get stretched out on his table, and start on my book while he sets up and begins. Never checked on my opinion about final placement, before starting. I didn't think much of it then.

Through the tattoo he kept asking to see the picture on my phone, which was fine because I thought he was making sure he didn't mess up. Never invited me to look at it, nothing. Which wasn't unusual to me because my other artists never did either.

He gets done and he's like let me clean it up. I look at my leg and the starting of panic begins. His ears are blue inside...

"Umm...his ears are supposed to be pink."

Surprise hits him, "That's right! Hold on I can fix this!"

I lay back down as he rushes to make up some pink, apologizing. Come back in two weeks and I'll fully fix the ears he's saying. He adds in the pink and says it looks great. I am afraid to look down at this point. I let him do the small one that's just two line on my wrist real quick, and then he starts rushing me out the door. I stop at the front desk and make an appointment for two weeks and I keep glancing at my leg. Something else isn't right...

It clicks as I walk out... The eyes, the nose, hell the shading in general. It's all f***ed up. It's like a beginner did it.

I make it to where I work and stop in the parking lot. I'm in full blown panic mode. I go in and my coworkers are like what's wrong. I turn to one of the ones who recommended this shop and just say,

"They f***ed up stitch."

He looks at it and tell me to call them and demand to see the owner. Trembling I managed to do this, but the owner isn't available until tomorrow. I work tomorrow.

I try calming down, don't really succeed. I message my boss the first time, about coming in early or late so I can meet the owner, then drive to a local bar, and have a few beers while playing pool by myself trying not to think. I message again when I leave because no reply

So now I am waiting for my boss to reply to any of my messages, since he's the other one who recommended this shop. I'm just ready to scream.

[bodymodificationnation]

You get what you pay for! ~ Lion King Edition 1: ben_ochoa (left) and amyturtletattoo (right) 2: michelabottin (left) and unknown (right) 3: ben_ochoa (left) and harlequinn_ink (right)

Click here for Frozen Edition.

[wittyshadow]

For the love of god, when you get a Rubik’s Cube tattoo, scramble up a real one and copy the colors. There’s a logic to Rubik’s cubes: the red and orange centers are opposite to each other, so are white and yellow, blue and green. Also, every piece is only on the cube once. Examples of what not to do:

The blue and green centers aren’t next to each other, what even is this.

The blue|red centerpiece is on there twice. All pieces are only in there once. Also incorrect.

Red and orange centers next to each other, yet again... (if that’s even red? I think there’s 2 orange centers in this one??) The blue|green centerpiece is on there, but since those colors are opposites on the cube, a piece with both of those colors doesn’t exist.

Blue and green centers, do I even have to say it anymore? And then there’s the white|yellow|blue cornerpiece. White and yellow are opposites, so just like with the former centerpiece, they cannot be on the same cornerpiece either. (There are ‘impossible’ cornerpieces in nearly every one of these examples)

If you just pick random colors there’s a big chance that you’ll have something that isn’t even possible irl tattooed on your skin forever. Please people, just scramble a real one for refence.

[audreynickel]

Another Tattoo Fail: Big Sister’s Big Mess

“Big sister” got it very wrong

A chairde: I’m just recovering from three weeks on the road, culminating in the annual week-long Irish immersion course in Butte, Montana (an event I highly recommend, by the way!), and I’m a bit fried (Irish: Tá mé spíonta -- I’m spent).

I plan to write about the Butte course next week, when I’m a bit recovered (and when the roofers are done making loud noises on my soon-not-to-be-leaky roof). There’s a lot to write about!

I can’t let a bad tattoo go by, however, and since this one fell into my lap last week, I give you...

Big Sister’s Big Mess: Four Mistakes in Two Words

It’s hard to believe that a person could get so much wrong in a simple two-word phrase. Two words: four mistakes. That may just be something of a record.

This person was clearly going for “Big Sister,” but unfortunately what she ended up with is nonsense.

Let’s Start With the Accents

The first thing that any Irish speaker or learner would notice here is the accent marks. In Irish, the accent marks ALWAYS slant to the right (Like the one over the “u” above. That’s called an “acute” or “long” accent...in Irish síneadh fada). Left-slanting (grave) accents simply don’t happen.

Scottish Gaelic is a little different in that respect. In the form of Scottish Gaelic currently spoken in Scotland, the accents slant to the left...just the opposite of Irish There’s also a form of Scottish Gaelic spoken in Nova Scotia, Canada, that has both left- and right-slanting accents. This raises the question: Was our hero going for Scottish Gaelic, Canadian-style?

Unlikely, I’m afraid. As it happens, The Scottish Gaelic word for “sister” is very different from the Irish word...so different that there’s no mistaking them. The Scottish Gaelic word for sister is piuthar. The Irish is deirfiúr. So she either got the accents wrong or she got the word for “sister” wrong. I’m banking on the former.

Accents matter, folks. They’re not just there to look pretty. If you have the wrong type of accent, or an accent where one shouldn’t be (or none where one is needed), the word is misspelled, and may even take on a different meaning.

And I can’t emphasize this enough: While Scottish Gaelic and Irish are very closely related, and similar in many respects, they are different languages, and you can’t just swap words or features between them.

A Problem with Placement

An incorrect accent mark might be easily corrected, but unfortunately that’s not the only problem with this tattoo. In Irish, the adjective follows the noun it modifies. “Mór” (”big”) is the adjective here, and must come AFTER “deirfiúr.”

People with little or no language-learning experience tend to assume that word order in one language is the same as word order in another. Sorry folks...It just doesn’t work that way.  Languages aren’t codes for one another (if they were, all we’d have to do to learn new languages is memorize vocabulary lists!). 

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: You can’t simply plug Irish words into English syntax and hope to have something that makes sense. In English it may be “big sister,” but Irish needs a “sister big.”

And Then There’s Gender

As with most European languages, all Irish nouns have a grammatical “gender,” which affects what happens to the words around them.

“Deirfiúr” is grammatically feminine and, in most cases, when feminine nouns are followed by an adjective beginning with a consonant, that consonant must be “softened” or “lenited,” which changes its pronunciation. 

In contemporary Irish, lenition is indicated by putting an “h” after the consonant (in the older form of Irish writing known as “seanchló” it was represented by placing a dot over the consonant).

So what this person needed was “Deirfiúr Mhór.” Oops! Good thing it’s not perman...er...oh. 

But Wait! There’s More!

There’s one more error in this tattoo, even after all the grammatical errors are addressed. Did you spot it? Look closely.

To add spelling insult to grammatical injury, our unfortunate tattoo-ee has left out a letter. Instead of “deirfiúr,” she’s got “deifiúr” -- the first “r” is missing.

The Big Question: Why?

Tattoos can be a beautiful form of self-expression. They’re also, however, a pricey, painful, and permanent form of self-expression. If you’re going to get one, isn’t it worth the time and research necessary to make sure it’s perfect?

I never have understood why anyone would get a tattoo in a language he or she didn’t personally speak...at least without doing A LOT of research. Sadly, many of the Irish tattoos out there are clearly the result of little or no research. Certainly that’s the case with “Big Sister” here.

Just don’t do it, folks. And don’t let your friends do it. Friends don’t let friends get bad tats. Put in the time before you lay down your money. Is that too much to ask?

GG

P.S. Some have questioned whether “mór” (”great/big”) is the correct adjective here. I admit that I was concerned about that myself (I would have said “deirfiúr is sine” -- “eldest sister”), so I consulted with native speaker friends of mine, who assured me that “deirfiúr mhór” is just fine for “big (in the sense of “elder/eldest”) sister.

Coming next week: “Rocky Mountain Haigh: Irish in Montana”

[bodymodificationnation]

👏 Don’t 👏 Copy 👏 Tattoos 👏

Original artist: corehlopez_ (left)

[bodymodificationnation]

You get what you pay for! ~ Frozen Edition 1. greta_latattooeria (left) and ovenlee.tattoo (right) ~ Good 2. davidcoxtattoos (left) and arletta_tattoo (right) ~ Bad 3. samanta_tattoo (left) and lizcooktattoo (right) ~ Good

Click here for Lion King Edition.