to: tiangotlost@gmail.com
date: Thu, Jan 13, 2011 at 2:51 PM
subject: Help with tatoo translation
Hello!
I was reading your blog- I love it! My father got this tattoo and he wont tell anyone what it means. Its been rumored to mean "man with many blessings" or "man with a big stick." Can you tell me what it really means?
Thank you so much!!!
-M
The characters 永 & 石 mean "eternal" and "rock/stone". Of course, the tattooed phrase is non-sense. However, it is very likely the person got this wanted to "rock forever" if he was into the music scene, or "[to be] stone forever" as a junkie. As many modern day rockstars are both.
永石 could also be Japanese names for えいせき (Eiseki), ながいし (Nagaishi), or よんそく (Yonsoku).
Judging by the email, perhaps it was intended to mean "forever hard" as in "I'll never take 2 viagras at once ever again".
ReplyDeleteThe word "rock" is metaphorically associated with durability, stability and stubornness. Perhaps the tattoo was meant to mean sometthing like thaat.
ReplyDeleteMy interpretation: "always a blockhead"
ReplyDeleteIf 永石 is a Japanese surname, the most likely reading is Nagaishi. Eiseki is possible as a company name or something. I have no idea where the heck "Yonsoku" came from; that seems very unlikely.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly, 永石 is also a place name read なげし (Nageshi), most notably as the name of a hot springs (温泉) in Beppu.
Eternal Rock sounds like some Christian thing to me. Jesus is my eternal rock or something along those lines is probably what he was going for, no?
ReplyDeleteI could see it intending to mean "eternal stone" as something durable, as stone is - "like a rock" as in "constant and reliable" or something, but yeah, kinda gets mangled in translation doesn't it...if that was the intent at all.
ReplyDelete