Here is yet another reason why many people are sketchy (no pun intended) about getting a tattoo. What could be worse than having your body permanently etched with a design you didn’t intend? Case in point….
This young lady looks kinda cute. I mean, this is an ideal place to get a sexy little tattoo, and particularly when it represents something poignant and meaningful. But of course all tattoos do, but in this case, her intention was to get a Japanese Kanji symbol tattooed. The symbol that she chose was to represent “Wind”. In fact, the symbol that she got was the Wind symbol reversed.
Quite possible she picked the Kanji image from an inexpensive website in order to save a few bucks, or possible that she ran into an inexperienced tattoo artist that wasn’t paying too much attention to her end product. Either way, her new symbol could mean anything from “good sushi” to “pass the salt”. Whatever it means, it doesn’t mean “Wind”.
There are examples of this happening all over the Internet, so if you are looking for something script like, symbolic, or anything that is not in your native tongue, the moral here is that you need to do your research. Once you have decided on the phrase, symbol, or script (such as Sanskrit) that you want, find the image online, and cross-check it on as many websites as you feel comfortable. The last thing you want is to end up with the wrong tattoo.
Before you get sketched, sketch it out yourself first with some thorough research.