For those of us who do not have a tattoo in a foreign language, it may seem rather amusing. For those who have been seduced by the appeal and romanticism of having a meaningful word or phrase translated into an exotic foreign language, the result can be rather embarrassing.
• Footballer John Carew was hoping for ‘my life, my rules’ in French. What he got was ‘my life, my periods’…
• Britney Spears asked to have ‘mysterious’ tattooed onto her in Chinese. Instead, her tattoo says ‘strange’…
• David Beckham decided Hindi script was a less tacky way of having his wife’s name tattooed onto him, but the tattoo artist then misspelt her name…
• Rihanna is famously a ‘flower rebel’ because her tattooist got the French the wrong way round…
When these tattoos go wrong they can become ridiculous or meaningless, and as they were chosen for reasons of personal significance, they kind of defeat the object.
So what do you do if you wanted a profound statement about yourself or your vision of the world, and instead you ended up with a random inking that could make you a laughing stock the day someone translates it? Luckily, tattoo removal can make the memory and the mistake fade away…
