Saturday, February 10, 2007

"Bugs?"

Professional English-Japanese translator Alan Siegrist writes:
Hi Tian,

OK, so I was looking over the kanji tattoos at Bmezine.com again (yes, it is getting addictive), and I found this picture:


http://www.bmezine.com/tattoo/A70121/high/bmepb441572.jpg

The first thing I thought of when I saw all of these guys with the character on their shoulders was the combination , but I couldn’t for the life of me think of why they would want to tattoo themselves with the word for bug or insect.

Then I thought it might be a Chinese thing, so I looked it up in a Chinese dictionary. I think that or can mean “brothers.” Is that the first association a Chinese person would make upon seeing the character ? Or would you think of also? Even if the meaning of “brother” is right, why would they use only which means only “elder brother”?

If they really wanted to do a guy thing and tattoo themselves with the Chinese or Japanese for “brothers” wouldn’t be a better choice?

Anyway, I know you must be busy, but I still appreciate the work you put into Hanzismatter.com.

Best,


Alan


may have once meant 'brother.' However, just like any other language, its meaning has changed with time. Similar to the word 'gay' no longer exclusively meaning 'happy' in modern day English.