Tattoos gone wrong: Permanently lost in translation

The girlfirend's name a week before the break up; the Tweety Pie on a 300-pound body builder. Many tattoos can be considered mistakes. 

But there is a special place on the Internet for what we are calling Chinese "tatt-tastrophes." 

Tian, an Arizona-based amateur linguist, runs the Hanzi Smatter blog -- a site dedicated to Asian language tattoos gone wrong. Tian translates Chinese tattoos for people who probably should have sought him out, or any Chinese-speaking friend, before getting their flesh indelibly inscribed. 

Tian says more than 90 percent of the email inquiries he receives about tattoos have incorrectly written characters. There are now more than 400 examples on his site.

Most emails are from people who never bothered to verify meanings or get second opinions before they inked their bodies, Tian says. Tian's art -- he has no tattoos himself -- is to bluntly inform them of the damage that has already been done.

Scroll through the gallery above to see 10 of the best/worst. 

Got your own terrible tattoo translation? Let us know in the comments.

Chris Anderson is the former associate editor of CNNGo based in Hong Kong and is now the AOL Travel senior editor of Huffington Post Media Group.

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