Around here we spend a lot of time making fun of tattoos that have spelling and grammar errors, but can we walk the walk? Take our Ugliest Tattoos Copyediting Test and find out!
Spot the error in each of these tattoos and then check out the solutions after the jump to see how you did!
Submitted by: dunno source via Submission Page
Submitted by: dunno source via Submission Page
Submitted by: dunno source via Submission Page
Answers:
Two points if you got both the diction error and the missing cross on the t. Give yourself an extra point if you struck out any of the random capitalization.
One point for diction, another if you suggested avoiding either the passive voice or vomit-inducing platitudes.
Finally, there’s nothing to do here except start all over at square one, and by “square one” I mean “before you dropped out of the third grade.”
So how’d you do?
0-2 points: You should probably stick to tattoos of monochromatic shapes and keep them in places that are easily covered. A lot of fast food establishments won’t hire people with exposed tattoos.
3-4 points: Not bad! Feel free to get a tattoo of something simple, like your name or hometown. You probably won’t screw it up.
5 or more points: Amazing! You would make a great copyeditor, which is basically the same as saying that you would make a great unemployed person. Enjoy nitpicking the grammar on that Law & Order marathon you’re probably watching right now!
-
-
Copy & paste this:
“but rather the amount OF life in your years”
she left out the of
oh woops i didn’t see it hidden in the border
OF is in there. It’s off to the left.
The grammar nazi in me just pulled a Hitler and killed itself.
Ha! so stealing “pulled a Hitler”
Maybe people should just start writing “Twilight, p. 19, 3rd paragraph” or whatever instead of getting these painfully long quotes on their backs.
The third one is like a bad visit to the eye doctor. I think I definitely need glasses cause I could not follow that!
LMAO @ “Twilight, p. 19, 3rd paragraph.”
Or, in the case of the third tattoo, “My angst-ridden high school journal, p. 19, 3rd paragraph.” I lost interest before I could determine what this person thought an artist was, but I definitely question his definition/selection of “tattoo artist.”
For the record, that’s a Pablo Picasso quote. It’s a grammar-devoid version thereof, but still Picasso.
I lost interest too…stopped reading after the 2nd line. Stupid tattoo
tl:dr?
ditto – tldr.
indeed
It made my head hurt too. What a snore.
Ugh, just you wait, people are going to start quoting Twilight the way they do the Bible… “Breaking Dawn 147:4″
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
god have mercy on us all
NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
edward have mercy on us all
Ha, Ha, ha, ha, ha, LMAO @ “Twilight, p. 19, 3rd paragraph.” That’s too funny.
Other errors– #1: “Amount” is singular, so it should read “counts.” Also, bizarre capitalization. #2: “But” should replace “as” for clarity, and it shouldn’t switch from “one” to “he” for consistency. #3: Exactly.
I also thought that “count” should be written as “counts” in the first one… am I wrong?
The third tattoo is a Pablo Picasso quote, though woefully devoid of punctuation.
Nothing worse than a quote tattoo. Could you imagine asking the third guy if he had a tattoo and he takes his shirt off and show you that. It’s not something you can just look at and get. You’d have to be like hang on a sec dude, I’m trying to read you.
What about the subject/verb agreement for “the number of…” and “count” in the first one? Shouldn’t it be “counts”?
the last one is a poorly plagerized (in that the original sounded artsy douche instead of hipster douche) quote from picasso.
Plagiarism is seerius bizness; please learn to spell it when pointing fingers. Also, please replace your broken shift key before commenting on a grammar post. Thank you!
Consistency error in the second tattoo: “which (that) he has” should be “which (that) one has.” Random capitalization there, too. @_@
Mushaboom, you’re totally right about the he->one change. Also, in the first one, the ellipses should be replaced with a comma.
I have a weird sort of love affair with spelling and grammar!
Although I’ve never seen such a brilliant change as the suggestion for the last tattoo!
Who (worth knowing) doesn’t love spelling and grammar?!
Also, “but rather” in the first tattoo is needlessly redundant. I would make it, “In the end, it is not the number of years in your life that counts; rather, it is the amount of life in your years.”
I think the person with the third tattoo should have it removed and replaced by the red-penned “delete” box.
Them: “What was deleted? Did you have a tattoo there before?”
Him: “Don’t try to understand me or my inkflesh– I’m an ARTIST.”
Mushaboom: Will you marry me? Haha!
I would have done the first one “In the end, it is not the number of years in your life that counts, but the amount of life in your years.” I believe that’s correct, too. But that’s the great thing about grammar: to each his own!
And I don’t know about the third tattoo as just the delete box. I sort of like the idea of the delete box over the whole mess. That way, people would have the terrible joy of seeing a heart-breakingly horrible tattoo, but also the relief going into it that it’s just a big copy-editing joke! As long as the “artist” keeps his mouth closed, everybody wins! But if he tries to explain….
Them: “So why didn’t you just try to take the WHOLE THING off?”
Him: “Don’t try to understand me or my inkflesh- I’m an ARTIST!”
Haha!
Our wedding can be “Strunk & White” themed! Oh my gosh, we could shout “omit needless words!” at the officiant. So epic~!
To add some extra irony to the tattoo, the “artist” could misspell the word “delete.” A mistake covering a mistake…
Them: “You… I think ‘delete’ is spelled wrong… is it–?”
Him: “Don’t try to understand me or my inkflesh– I’m an ARTIST! Also…really?”
Strunk & White always makes me think of a white-striped skunk. If my wedding cake looked like a skunk, I think we’d have to effect our prenup right then and there!
Course there’s always the Spunk & Bite theme! Now that would be a cake with a kick!
Now I’ve got a picture of a string of tattoo artists each calling each other to come over and help them with this guy. As each one makes a mistake, they call another to help them fix it.
1. Dude. I think I spelled something wrong….
2. Seriously? You spelled it ALL wrong!
1. How do I fix it?
2. Let’s try this. (adds Deleet).
1. Man, you spelled Delete wrong!
2. No, I didn’t!
1. Yeah, you did.
2. Shoot. Well, how do we fix it?
3. I am SUPERTATTOOARTIST and I will save the day!
2. You need spaces in your name.
3. No, I don’t.
2. Or at least hyphens…all one word is confusing.
3. Shut up. Let’s just fix this guy.
2. How?
3. Can we turn the “deleet” into “Twilight,” do you think? Or pretty flowers?
2. … Do you realize that you just wrote “Twylight” in flowers?
3. … Okay. How do we fix it?
4. Never fear! I am GoodSpeeler, and I will save the day!
3. GoodSpeeler? What’s a Speel?
4. It’s the way you arrange the letters in a word! You know. In school you have speeling tests!
3. *Facepalm*
And on it goes. It’s like that photo of a photo of a photo that goes on forever. But it’s a typo of a typo of a typo with no end until it is completely unrecognizable. The horror!
Them: “Dude, what the heck is on your back?”
Him: “Well, I went in to get a pony jumping over a rainbow, but I think they keep adding clouds. I still haven’t seen it yet, so I’m not exactly sure….”
Them: “Man, I have no idea what that is, but it’s definitely not a pony….”
Him: “Don’t try to understand me or my inkflesh- I’m an ARTIST!”
Or, perhaps, he planned all this. Then, of course, he would say, “Dont try to undrestand me ore my incflesh- im a ARTTIST!”
I’m a total nerd.
Hahaha! Love it!
Him: “Ugh, I’m feeling dizzy all of a sudden…”
Them: “You’ve been at the tattoo parlor for six days– they’ve been working on you non-stop.”
Him: “What of it, knave?”
Them: “Are you sure they didn’t break the skin at some point?”
Him: “Don’t try to undaaaaghbleh” *death by ink poisoning*
Them: “Alas!”
Exeunt
“What of it, knave?”
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAA good.
This is why I love this site. Besides all the woefully awful tattoos, I can find people out there who know about Strunk and White. I am an English major but somehow am the only one in in my Introduction to Literary Criticism class who owned the book. Sad. <– I am aware that is not a real sentence. Heheh.
Know what else is redundant? The phrase “needlessly redundant.” Just sayin’.
Caught that one, too.
Also, both “amount of years” and “number of years” requires the verb to be written “countS…” <_<
I’m more into spelling and punctuation, but grammar holds a fair bit of importance to me, too. Odd capitalisation drives me bonkers!
I hope that shows up.
If that doesn’t work, then screw it:
http://i32.tinypic.com/27xbg0.jpg
Exactly what I thought! tl;dr
#2 looks like the whole right section was done after the left, seems the hard route. But…”success” looks new too. Dunno, hopefully the lighting, but fun to imagine the piece half finished for a month until she saved her tips as a sandwich artist to get it completed.
Also wished the foreign flair had continued: le measured, le position, le obstacles…
It looks to be done on the inside of the arm. Maybe s/he wimped out on the discomfort and needed to go out and get some analgesic cream to get the last of it done.
I don’t know if this tatto would be the choice of a sandwich artist (although that is total win); I’m thinking more like the snotty, clique-ish high school dropout girl who stocks the shelves at American Apparel.
I think “le measured” is supposed to say “be measured”. I read it the same way, though. You should definitely make sure the “artist” in question passed third grade cursive *before you let him tat you up. le perfection! oui! oui!
I can’t make out the first line. I get ‘Successistolemeasured’. Am I wrong? What the hell does that mean?
glad to see someone else saw the “le” on #2…
‘les’ obstacles then
First tattoo is not so bad, even though I think such subject matter should really be left off the skin. That, and random capitalization annoys me. Second one, the words aretoosquishedtogether, and the word “be” looks more like “le” because the cursive is bad. The last one? tl;dr.
Actually, the second ‘of’ looks like they tacked it in after the fact. Perhaps even with different ink. All of the text is nicely justified until that word.
Is it a perspective effect or does the third tattoo gets smaller as it goes?
I think it’s a little of both.
Re #1: It should be “Counts” rather than “Count”. Yes, “Years” is plural; however, it is part of a prepositional phrase, viz. “of years in your life”. Removing that phrase, the sentence as it stands right now would be “…it’s not the number that count”. Subject-Verb Agreement–the noun “number” is the subject and, as it is a singular word, the verb should be the singular “counts” rather than the plural “count”.
Re #2: The cursive is horrible and reads “le” instead of “be”. The lowercase cursive “b” has a small tail or shelf to distinguish it from the lowercase letter “l”. Notice that the “l-e” combination in “obstacles” is extremely similar to the attempt at a “b-e” combination for “be”.
Guy #3 needs a subsequent tramp stamp of “TLDR”
Guy #3 needs to loosen the screws a little bit. Can you say, “Chip on the shoulder?”
amen, brother
In the first one, it should be counts, as in, “the number of years that counts.” He got confused by the plural “years” since it was close to the verb.
Tat #1 also has an agreement issue–
“It’s not the number of years in your life that count” should be “It’s not the number of years in your life that countS.”
Though “years” is plural, it is part of a prepositional phrase that modifies “number,” a singular noun.
She counts.
He counts.
They count.
Numbers count.
Number counts.
Wow. Great catch.
The actual quote is “And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.– Abraham Lincoln”
They should have stuck with the actual wording.
Yea the second one refers to the subject as “one” then changes it to a “he”. Pick a subject noun and stick with it!
bwuahahahaha … I find it hilarious that all of you are bothering to correct some idiots tattoo grammar.
Chris…don’t you mean “some idiot’s?”
I just felt like being a total jerk! Doesn’t mean I don’t love you, Chris!
Your first word should be capitalized, you have an extra space before your ellipsis and you forgot the apostrophe in “idiot’s.”
Bwuahahahaha… I find it hilarious that I am bothering to correct some idiot’s grammar.
Your first word should be capitalized. You have an extra space before your ellipsis. And you forgot the apostrophe in “idiot’s.”
Fixed that for you; though semicolons would also have been acceptable.
Sorry, but that’s a terrible correction. There’s no reason to split his sentence up; you even started one of the sentences with “and,” which makes me cringe. All Greg needs is a comma after “ellipsis” and he’s good.
Hehe. Nicely done, Greg.
Actually, it should be “idiots’” because we are correcting the grammar of many idiots’ tattoos.
TOO LONG! Did not read
A part of me wants to believe that guy #3 pissed off his tattoo artist and actually thought he was getting an eagle on his back. Instead, the “artist” retaliated from being called an imbecile with this poorly spaced diatribe. Take THIS, random customer!
What do you think–an artist is an imbecile who has only eyes (if he is a painter), or ears (if he is a musician), or a lyre in every chamber of his heart (if he is a poet), or even (if he is a boxer) just his muscles?! Far from it–at the same time he is also a political being, constantly aware of the heartbreaking, passionate, or delightful things that happen in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How could it be possible to feel no interest in other people, and with a cool indifference to detach yourself from the very life which they bring to you so abundantly?
OKAY, SO FAR SO GOOD, ALTHOUGH SOME WOULD QUIBBLE WITH THE SEXIST PRONOUNS. BUT I CAN’T THINK OF ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE LAST LINES:
No painting is not done to decorate apartments, it’s an instrument of war.
THIS IS JUST UNSALVAGEABLE–NOT ONLY IS THE GRAMMAR WRONG, BUT THE IDEA MAKES NO SENSE.
No. Painting is not done to decorate apartments. It’s an instrument of war.
No, painting is not done to decorate apartments; it is an instrument of war.
No, painting is not done to decorate apartments; it’s an instrument of war
Whoops–it seems that I mis-parsed it.
“What do you think an artist is, an imbicile…?”
“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile…”
I have a tattoo of the word “love” and it’s a pain when people ask to read it. Imagine being that last guy.
Its a Quote that is attributed to Pablo Picasso, though i’ve also seen it this way:
“What do you think an artist is? An imbecile who only has eyes if he’s a painter, ears if he’s a musician, or a lyre in every chamber of his heart if he’s a poet – or even, if he’s a boxer, only some muscles? Quite the contrary, he is at the same time a political being constantly alert to the horrifying, passionate or pleasing events in the world, shaping himself completely in their image. How is it possible to be uninterested in other men and by virtue of what cold nonchalance can you detach yourself from the life that they supply so copiously? No, painting is not made to decorate apartments. It’s an offensive and defensive weapon against the enemy.”
#3 is a part of Picasso’s response to those who questioned why he painted his violent “Guernica” instead of something more pleasant. However, his argument is far more compelling when taken in context. The lack of punctuation and unreadable font do it no favours. Also, some of the last line appears to have been lost in the dude’s ass crack.
It also would look a lot better on a plaque or printed on one of those Paperchase notebooks. As a tattoo, it’s just sad.
uh in the first what about the fact that they forgot the word of.. it says “rather the amount life in your years” should be amount OF life
Off topic, but the next time you put up one of those “meta” tattoos (like the ones which say “tattoo”), consider this item from today’s Drudge Report (on using computers to decide ancient languages):
[Prof. Regina] Barzilay points out the decipherment of Ugaritic took years and relied on some happy coincidences — such as the discovery of an axe that had the word “axe” written on it in Ugaritic.
Oh man, that makes me lol so hard.
Would that be the Rosetta Tat?
The Rosetta Rosette?
*Retch!…this made me sick, not the misspelled greeting card text. I went all the way through the third tattoo without looking up and I think I am sea sick. These don’t qualify for a t-shirt. Maybe a framed needlepoint hanging in grandma’s bathroom.
“It’s not your lack of grammar skills, it’s how you apply them to permanent body art.”
A guy enters a tattoo shop. The tattoo artist at the desk asks if he can help.
Guy: “Yes, I want to get a back piece done.”
Tattoo Artist: “What are you looking to get done?”
Guy: “I want the lyrics to ‘I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)’ by Meat Loaf”
These tattoo artists should have said I won’t do that.
The first tatoo is lacking the cross over the t in the word “count”.
my brain has obviously been damaged by this site. i read the title as “Get Out Your Red Penis!”
T_T
thankfully that wasn’t it and the tattoos didn’t depict anything of the sort.
THEPENIS
MIGHTIER
THANTHESWORD
Too long, Didn’t read.
The jumbled-up writing in #2 looks like a big patch of pubic hair
I thought “script spaghetti”, but yeah… the spacing is shiat.
i just wanted to point out something that was missed in the first tattoo… i know it’s so much fun to kick twilight in the lack of gonads, but allow me to point out on the first tattoo that saying But and Rather in this context is redundant. Therefore, a strikeover in either one of those two words (I would choose ‘but’ personally, however I’m rather pedantic at times)
Every one of these has not only several grammatical mindfucks but also terrible spacing and pretty much no punctuation. I thought I could copyedit them like a champ but after a while j couldn’t keep track of where one word ended and another began, let alone the number of errors.
If one is going to get a quote tattooed on one’s skin, one should at least get the quote itself right:
And in the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.– Abraham Lincoln
Should also be “the number of years that countS”–the “counts” is referring to the “number,” so it needs an “S” for subject-verb agreement.
We’re Not Counting the Random capitalization in The first Tattoo?
Said capitalization seems to follow what Pratchett calls “the ballistic aproach”…
But I do understand. Sometimes, when I feel a word, even a mere letter is of special importance (even [again], in the letter´s /latter´s case, when in the midst of a word) I feel the need to embellish it by random capitalization. I cannot help it, I do feel thusly.
i would love to know an artist who could cover all that,can u imagine what they could do to fresh skin,if it is possible to cover,the colored tat would have somethin to start over,but,wow,that is a lot of uneven lettering.i knew an artist who could make anything better,but he is deceased,,sort of like rockwells portrayal-the names of women,with line thru,,but live&let live,i say,
For the second tatooo, it should also be noted that at the beginning of the sentence, the subject is “one,” but, by the end, the subject is “he.”
That’s also a FAIL.
I totally thought that that’s what we were supposed to catch. I noticed the that/which thing…but they really are colloquially interchangeable, so I think this one’s better.
As a tat, it’s not clean or perfect, no. But meaning > grammar/ spelling.
No, really though: the Picasso quote actually MEANS something.
Do any of the above grammatical prescriptivists — (sorry for the big weird word, but my da was a linguist & it’s one of theirs) — care enough about an image, a word, or a paragraph to have it cut into their skin?
And if not, why not?
(sorry, I should have said, I meant no. 3: the backpiece.)
TLDR
I spotted the errors immediately!! They got tattoos in the first place.
As someone with a PhD in linguistics, I feel I have to comment…
The third one’s funny, but the first two “corrections” are just nonsense. Sorry. There’s really nothing wrong with saying “amount of years” (nor, incidentally, is that a matter of either grammar or spelling) or “obstacles which”, unless you happen to be writing in some journal that takes seriously the very personal and frequently entirely unfounded peeves of people like Strunk and White (the damage done by this pair of otherwise fine writers to people’s conceptions of right and wrong in language depresses me…).
If you’re writing for a journal, or a newspaper, or something like that, then you follow their house style, however much or little sense the rules they impose actually make. If you’re writing on your own flesh, the house rules are your own, and if a library full of the most respected writers can use which in a restrictive relative clause then so can you! Shakespeare did, the writers of the King James Bible did; I’d imagine most of your favourite writers did. The injunction against it is a made-up rule with very shaky foundations (in fact, most such injunctions are).
Just because someone tells you something’s wrong doesn’t mean that it is.
@ the bottom pic: TL;DR
Commenting on the top pic:
1. It’s a run-on sentence
2. Misused ellipsis
3. Subject-verb agreement issue
4. Incorrect initial capitalization
5. Possibly wordiness with the “rather.”
In the first one, the T is not crossed in “Count”
My Eys aRe BLeeDnG red iNk
LMao! mInE TOo!
I love the layout of the first one. If only it were spelled better.
To the best of my knowledge, it should also be “counts” (“amount” (or “number” for that matter) being 3rd person singularis).
What really strikes me about the first tattoo though, is that she clearly realised, that “of” as missing and went back to get that fixed – but still didn’t cross her t!