Can someone please translate what this tattoo sayss

[Stephanie Carrillo]

I got this tattoo when I was 16 I was told it was a nice chinese quote but i was 16 and stupid and i just really liked the tattoo, but now my daughter always asks me what that means and i really dont know what it means, help please!

[Shelley]

I am sorry to say that I don't think it means anything. they don't look like any chinese characters I have ever seen. It is possible they are written in a style/font that has rendered them unreadable. I am sure someone else will come along to confirm this or not.

 

Did you ever have any idea what is was suppose to say?

[vellocet]

斯女something 艹 something

 

First one is a grammar particle meaning 'thus', next is female, third is I don't know, fourth is a partial character meaning grass, last is I don't know.  The third and fifth don't look like Chinese, maybe another language or oracle bone pictographs.  I thought this might be from the gibberish Asian font but it doesn't look like it.

 

[Publius]

斯女 could mean 'this female' or 'thus thou' (女 being an archaic variant of 汝).

The last character looks like 兮, an empty word for poetic emotions and rhythmic modification.

But the omission of a dot in 斯 indicates the tattoo artist hardly knew any Chinese let alone classical literature.

And since 艹 is usually used only as a radical (for a character, 艸 is more appropriate), I venture to say that what looks like 兮 is the lower part of 芬 in cursive script, and the whole thing could be a rather miserable attempt at 斯蒂芬, a transliteration of 'Stephan'.

Anyways, it's misshaped and illegible. If the bearer of the tattoo can't tell what it's supposed to mean, nobody can.

[lips]

This part looks like 芬.

[lips]

35 minutes ago, Publius said:

斯蒂芬, a transliteration of 'Stephan'.

That's probably it.

This part could be construed to be 蒂

.

 

 

[Lu]

Impressive impressionist reading skills! That seems to be the solution. Although I wonder how that 女 got in there.

[somethingfunny]

I think maybe the idea is that it just coincidentally looks like 女 but is actually another 艹?

 

I am also impressed at the ability to read meaning into these things.  While a transliteration of "Stephan" sounds plausible, even appealing, I still can't bring myself to believe it's true.

[roddy]

Look at the OP's name. 

[Lu]

Right. Wow.

[Shelley]

Interesting and as Lu says impressive deciphering. The OP thought it was a

13 hours ago, Stephanie Carrillo said:

nice chinese quote

 

So its interesting that it is her name and she doesn't remember asking for this.

[somethingfunny]

I'm not sure what's more embarrassing, that tattoo, or me not reading people's names.

[roddy]

The only other possibility, and I really hope this isn't the case, is that Stephanie happened to have a boyfriend or tattooist called Stephan. 

[Shelley]

@somethingfunny Usually these things are easier to sort out, but I don't think you should feel embarrassed, it took the excellent eye of Publius to see through the tangled mess and work it out.

[Publius]

Definitely less embarrassing than 林蛋大.

[Lu]

It's 楚中天's teacher who should be embarrased. How come they didn't know the names of the children in the class?

[imron]

6 hours ago, Lu said:

How come they didn't know the names of the children in the class?

60-100 children to a class - it can take time to learn all the names (source: personal experience).

[陳德聰]

Also OP claims this was done when they were 16 but the picture looks like it was taken when the tattoo was still red around it so I mean I don't really feel inclined to believe the story.

[Shelley]

1 hour ago, 陳德聰 said:

the tattoo was still red

Unless the picture is an old picture taken when the tattoo was new and the wearer prouder

The plot thickens.

[Shelley]

P.S. the time stamp somewhat ruins that idea.