from: Tomas
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Jan 1, 2009 at 1:08 PM
subject: hanzi smatter

Hello, Thought I should send this contribution to your (awesome) blog. Found it on a Swedish community site, the proud owner of the tattoo claims that it says "GUN" (a Swedish female given name, not the thing you use to shoot people). I'm not good enough at Chinese to figure it out, but it seems like complete nonsense to me...



Since I was busy converting my DVD collection for Argosy HV358T-00500 HDD media player, I let Alan to take a crack at it:

Hah! How on earth is 巨臼内 supposed to be GUN? Is there yet another bogus "Chinese alphabet" out there?

巨臼内 means more like "inside the giant mortar." (Here, the "mortar" 臼 is the thing you use together with a pestle to crush things like grain or medicine. It is not the weapon.)

The things that people decide to get tattooed onto their bodies never cease to amaze.