from: Redd G.
to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Fri, Apr 22, 2011 at 9:35 PM
subject: tat translation...

She is a moron... so I'm wondering if her tattoo really says "love is a slow form of suicide".

If it does, I will be nothing short of shocked...



I have consulted this with Alan, and this is what he had to say about the tattoo:

The tattoo is properly written in Japanese (except for the horizontal line in フォーム which should be vertical in vertical writing like this).

愛は自殺の遅いフォームです

But this is rather puzzling and difficult to understand.

It literally means:

"Love is a late form of suicide."

"Late" is really supposed to be "slow" (遅い can mean either) so I guess this really was intended to be a translation of "Love is a slow form of suicide."

The word フォーム is borrowed from the English word "form," but in Japanese this word is usually used only for paper "forms" or such. It certainly would not appear in a poem in the intended sense of the word "form." A different Japanese word would be used for that. Since the "paper form" word is used, a Japanese person reading this would be very confused about what a "late form" is and what it has to do with love or suicide.

My guess is that someone just threw the sentence "Love is a slow form of suicide." into Google translate, translated into Japanese and tattooed the puzzling results onto the arm of the unsuspecting customer.