“The spelling did not look wrong to me at firs... For me, the text is upside-down so it’s in the right direction when I’m standing. It says Kelvin instead of Kevin. I didn’t think it was true.”In the right direction when I’m standing.... As opposed to the right direction when she's sitting? Whatever. This tattoo thing is going to end someday... someday soon... right? It's such a pitfall for the stupid.
There's a wonderful verse in Proverbs: "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." But I say: No. Not if he has a tattoo. Now, give the Old Testament credit: It forbids tattoos. No tattoo and no talking and maybe you can keep your foolishness a secret.
There's also the aphorism, "Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt." If you think Abraham Lincoln (or was it Mark Twain) said that, here's the Quote Investigator inquiry into the subject.
The ban on tattoos is Leviticus 19:28: "'Do not cut your bodies for the dead or put tattoo marks on yourselves. I am the LORD."
That makes me want to show you this from Lenny Bruce's autobiography, "How to Talk Dirty and Influence People":
I have a tattoo on my arm, and because of this tattoo, I can never be buried in a Jewish cemetery. That’s the Orthodox law. You have to go out of the world the same way you came in—no marks, no changes.By the way, you know what would be a great name for a kid? Celsius. For a boy, of course. If it's a girl, we're calling her Fahrenheidi.
Anyway, I told how, when I got back from Malta and went home to Long Island, I was in the kitchen, washing with soap, and my Aunt Mema saw the tattoo. So she flips. A real Jewish yell.
“Look what you did! You ruined your arm! You’re no better than a gypsy!”
So the producer [of the Steve Allen TV show] says that I can’t do this on the show because it would definitely be offensive to the Jewish people....
I said if they wouldn’t let me do that, I wouldn’t do the show... They had a meeting about it. They argued for about an hour while I was kept waiting in a corner, like a leper with a bell on my neck.
“We talked it over, Lenny. You know, it’s not only offensive to the Jewish people, but it’s definitely offensive to the Gentile people too.”
“Oh, yeah—how do you figure that?”
“Well, what you’re saying in essence is that the Gentiles don’t care what they bury.”
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79 comments:
By the way, you know what would be a great name for a kid? Celsius. For a boy, of course. If it's a girl, we're calling her Fahrenheidi.
Just when I was thinking of Kelvinator refrigerators.
"As opposed to the right direction when she's sitting?"
Bending over.
I went to school with a girl named Farren.
Kelvin Sampson used to be the head basketball coach at Oklahoma. He now coaches the Houston Cougars.
here's a wonderful verse in Proverbs: "Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue." But I say: No. Not if he has a tattoo.
That is laugh out loud funny. My nephew does stand-up, I am going to give him that one.
I think on Star Trek, the Kelvins had ten arms and were super intelligent.
Did you hear about the poor kid from El Salvadore whose Tattoo came out MS-31. Now he is a real refugee.
I saw a young woman at a wedding last night with two Chinese symbols tattooed on her back just below her neck. I asked her what they meant. She said, “happiness and love.” I told her that was wrong. They said, “free fucks.”
Walmart tattoos customer loyalty cards.
"Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt."
This is the PC era we're in now.
If you're wondering why all those kids aren't asking questions in class, well, that's why.
Keep quiet
Keep quiet
Keep quiet
Keep quiet
and shut up!
It's liberating to say what you think. If your thoughts are bad or foolish, that is how you learn. Because people push back against the bad or the foolish.
And if nobody pushes back, hey, maybe you're right!
You have to go out of the world the same way you came in—no marks, no changes.
My friend told me the other day that “You come into this world naked, and leave with a suit of. clothes.” I say this apropos of nothing, it just struck me as funny.
"I told her that was wrong. They said, “free fucks.”"
She have to start telling people fucks is an imprisoned political dissident.
Well, if you had taken high school physics or chemistry you'd have heard of Kelvin, though perhaps not as a first name. But today, with so many just plain wacko names given to kids by loony mothers, Kelvin is downright respectful.
Once, I could have said that this woman has zero degrees. Now, I'm not so sure about that.
How classist of me. Still, I'm in the corner of Althouse and Leviticus.
🎶Where have Bruces gone?
Long time passing
Where have all the Carlins gone?
Long time ago...🎶
You have to go out of the world the same way you came in—no marks, no changes.
They give you back your foreskin ?
You came into this world after your father came.
Stephen Lynch's song "Tattoo" covers most of this.
(Very NSFW, but very funny. Melts "special snowflakes" at 1200 yards.)
I’ve attended a meeting in what was Lord Kelvin’s sitting room and personal apartment at the University of Glasgow. My chemist parents found that to be mildly exciting.
"It's such a pitfall for the stupid."
Why only the stupid? At some point won't even the intelligent, charismatic, romantic and beautiful people of the world come to regret a body mutilation choice made earlier in life?
Lord Kelvin was an absolute zero.
Kelvin Bryant was a running back in the '80s NFL.
I mean, come on, everybody remembers him.
The worst part of the wedding incident is that the young woman was beautiful.
David Begley said...
I saw a young woman at a wedding last night with two Chinese symbols tattooed on her back just below her neck
"miso". Anyway, they analyze Asian-looking tattoos people send in, most are a fake Asian font where each fake "character" = a letter. The oldest posts are the funniest.
I always thought Inertia would be nice name for a black girl. But that's just my white privilege speaking. My bad.
"Celsius" was used once as a name for a superhero, after all the straightforward names had been taken. She was a woman from South Asia who could heat or cool things.
"I think on Star Trek, the Kelvins had ten arms and were super intelligent."
Funny, the connection I made was that the Kelvin was the ship Kirk's dad was on at the beginning of the first of the recent Star Trek movies.
I worked at an Atlas launch pad with a young rodeo cowboy named Kelvin. He ran a nitrogen pumping facility at our site and we all called it "the Kelvinator".
OK, 'Fahrenheidi' made me laugh out loud here in our quiet Sunday morning kitchen.
A classmate in medical school was named "Kelvin Lee." He was Asian and maybe his folks chose that name as a Physics thing.
How would you feel if you were the son and your name was changed because of someone's mistake?
In Sweden there's a Naming Law and the government has to approve the names of babies. You're only allowed to change your name once, so if he was registered as Kevin and it was changed to Kelvin, there's no going back for him (and no changing it to something else if he doesn't like Kelvin).
While tattoos go back countless centuries, their current popularity seems more a generational thing. I'm 61. The only time in my life when I seriously considered getting a tattoo was when I finished Army infantry training in 1975. I wanted to get "Government Inspected Meat" tattooed on my ass, but ultimately, I never did. Back then, the Army took a pretty negative view of tattoos. For one thing, if you got sick after getting a tattoo (they were less concerned with being sanitary back then), you could be prosecuted for destruction of government property. That is not an exaggeration or a joke. Another reason is that I had ambitions of going into Special Forces and they disapproved of body markings that identified you as an American - plausible deniability and all that.
My son is named Calvin, after my late father. Apparently it means "bald one" in ancient He has been called Kelvin by so many people, especially by school teachers, that I thought Lord Kelvin must have been much more popular that solely as the founder of a temperature scale.
Google "etymology of Calvin" and this is what you get: Origin of the name Calvin: From the French surname Cauvin, a derivative of the Latin calvinus (little bald one), which has its root in calvus (bald). The name was originally bestowed in honor of French Protestant reformer John Calvin (1509-64). Var: Kalvin.
"The name Kelvin is an English baby name. In English the meaning of the name Kelvin is: River man. From Old English words 'ship' and 'friend'. Famous Bearer: British physicist Lord Kelvin."
I like the name "Kelvin." There are a lot worse names.
"I think on Star Trek, the Kelvins had ten arms and were super intelligent."
On Star Trek, the Melvins had buck teeth, thick glasses, and looked like Jerry Lewis.
Kelvin is a place, not a person unless you're William Thomson, who was ennobled as Baron Kelvin. Following the laws of Peerage, titleholders take their appellation from placenames rather than personal names, in Thomson's case the place is, in fact, a Scottish river and its environs. Legally he ceased to be William Thomson, on all legal papers, deeds, bills of sales, contracts, and even personal checks Thomson was required to sign himself as Lord Kelvin or more specifically as just Kelvin. As I understand it the baronry was a life peerage, which meant there's no lineal descendant of William Thomson holding the title today.
Kelvin is a place and not strictly a person, but then Chelsea is and was since the time of Alfred the Great a place and is only recently a person — assuming the offspring of Bill and Hill is anything more than technically human.
Perhaps I'm a prig, but it seems to me not surprising that a person who doesn't know the name Kelvin would also be tattooed.
Sweden, eh?
Kelvin might put their Tax Authority to work.
There a "Curb Your Enthusiasm" that revolved around Larry David and his father digging up Larry's mother. She had been buried in a special section of the Jewish cemetery because she had a tattoo.
I am surprised this was not mentioned.
And you, a Larry David fan, Ann!
John Henry
I knew a Machinist Mate in the Navy who had a a big "M" tattooed on each but cheek.
It did triple duty.
MM for Machinist Mate
MoM when he bent over
WoW when he lay on his back and put his legs up.
John Henry
There's something of an urban legend quality to the belief that a tattoo disqualifies a Jew from burial in a Jewish cemetery.
"Whether he invented it or merely popularized it, the earliest record in pop culture of this erroneous belief is a comedy routine by Lenny Bruce."
http://jewishweek.timesofisrael.com/the-tattoo-still-taboo/
Even an official Hasidic website denies that there is any outright prohibition on burying someone with a tattoo in a Jewish cemetery (though individual Jewish burial societies may enforce such a prohibition if they feel strongly about the matter).
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/533444/jewish/Can-a-person-with-a-tattoo-be-buried-in-a-Jewish-cemetery.htm
Prof. A, I like your thought that a tattoo is like talking that never stops. It is there to call attention to itself, to augment what the owner found insufficient in what he or she was given. That striving skin-speech sometimes might work to enlighten or even entrance us, but it never stops, and being human we eventually tire of even the greatest of wise and beautiful sayings. They wear...thin. They fade, sag, blur. (That blurring is an interesting physiological process, by the way, as each ink-bearing cell dies and its cargo is acquired by its neighbors, and a gradient of physical diffusion is observed over the owner's life).
There was a Kevlin at my college, back before bizarro Christian names went mainstream. I blame Madison in "Splash" for that.
David Beckham is running out of real estate.
"If it's a girl, we're calling her Fahrenheidi."
Lovely!
The subject of being judgey about tattoos always makes me think of this piece and the hideously narcissistic parent who wrote it:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/aug/11/devastated-by-my-sons-tattoo
You have to go out of the world the same way you came in—no marks, no changes.
What about the bris?
"By the way, you know what would be a great name for a kid? Celsius. For a boy, of course. If it's a girl, we're calling her Fahrenheidi."
So now you're Rankine science geek names for kids?
I wanted to call our daughter Andromeda or Berenice (after coma berenices), being as she was of course a galactic-level event, but was firmly opposed.
"Fahrenheidi" may be a rude joke, I could interpret that as "Heidi driver" like a pile driver for Heidis.
There are a number of scientists who have named their sons "Kelvin" in honor of Lord Kelvin, the famous scientist.
Kevlar would be a better name for a boy. Baretta if its a girl.
Glad I'm not the only one wondering when the current tattoo craze will end, but I'm thinking it is here to stay like purple hair.
Snark, that reads like a parody. I hate to think what else is screwed up in that family.
Meghan's mum had a pin in her nose. How do those not get infected/yucky?
"Celsius. For a boy, of course. If it's a girl, we're calling her Fahrenheidi." Nope Kelvin is definitely the "absolute" best name . There is no "plus or minus" about it.
ugh.
"Snark, that reads like a parody. I hate to think what else is screwed up in that family."
Right? It never fails to blow my mind on any reading. Thank god for a father in the mix, who we presumably have to credit for some of his son's sanity and self-possession.
>I wanted to call our daughter Andromeda or Berenice (after coma berenices)
B,
I suggested Cassiopeia for one of our daughter's name. Mrs. DtM said no. :(
>>There are a number of scientists who have named their sons "Kelvin" in honor of Lord Kelvin, the famous scientist.
If my last name was Planck, or even Plank, I would name my daughter "Constance".
Did the fathers of these children have any input on the tatoos and name changes?
Too many plurals? We think maybe not.
Althouse: "By the way, you know what would be a great name for a kid? Celsius."
Especially appropriate, the mother in this case being Swedish. Wikipedia: "...named after the Swedish astronomer Anders Celsius (1701–1744)...."
San Francisco (and many California) public schools are very Asian, so they are full of Asian kids with odd western given names. Kelvin would not be strange at all.
Crimso said...So now you're Rankine science geek names for kids?
Good one! But did you know that his vortex is a downward death spiral?
I remember a time when White Trash was the exception, and not the rule. Maybe that’s the source of Afro-pessimism. These shitheels are keeping us down?
Did you hear about May Tag?
Kelvin ate her (-ator).
The guy by the copy machine is going to call him "the Kelvinator".
Kelvin Sampson used to be the head basketball coach at Oklahoma. He now coaches the Houston Cougars.
Started out in Division I at WSU.
@khematite,
Even an official Hasidic website denies that there is any outright prohibition on burying someone with a tattoo in a Jewish cemetery (though individual Jewish burial societies may enforce such a prohibition if they feel strongly about the matter).
I've also heard that the Jewish distaste for tattoos got a post-war boost when it was discovered that the Nazis had forcibly tattooed all the inmates of the camps. Tattoos then became not just "outside the rabbinic tradition", but associated with the worst example of historical antisemitism.
But, on the other hand, I've seen stories on line of pro-tattoo observant Jews, & in their defense, they can truthfully say: "Well, God does it!". To wit:
Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the LORD hath comforted his people, and will have mercy upon his afflicted.
"But Zion said, The LORD hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me.
Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee.
Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me."
(Isaiah 49:13-16)
Life peerages in the UK came into more generalised (i.e. outside of specific contexts in the Judiciary) use after 1958's Life Peerages Act. Lord Kelvin was created 1st Baron Kelvin of Largs in 1892; whether he had issue or not (i.e. whether there was a 2nd Baron), I have no idea.
Buwaya: "...odd Western given names." This reminds me of the weird words embroidered of printed onto garments --T shirts and motorcycle jackets-- where Eastern style appropriated Western language for its own purposes. I never knew (or even inquired) how that appropriation occurred. Was it an interest in the visual shapes of the symbols, the way these hapless tattoo customers end up engraved with the wrong message in kanji? Or was it a subversive attack on meaning, just chopping up signifiers into a word salad with a heavy dressing of irony?
There's also Kelvin Herrera of the Royals, who has been a very good reliever for almost a decade. And Kelvin Chapman, a crappy infielder for the Mets in the '80s.
My son had a Brit classmate named Kelvin when he was in Grade 2. He pronounced it Calvin.
The Star Trek "By Any Other Name" protagonists were Kelvans, not Kelvins.
I had an idea that Jewish aversion to tattoos was because of the Holocaust - I remember the old jewish man who owned our corner grocery store had the numbers on his wrist. It was chilling.
One thing that struck me about the Schneiderman story - the woman that fist came forward said that early in their relationship he made her have a tattoo on her wrist removed. She is a well to do socialite type, divorced from a Tisch ( I assumed from the wealthy NY real estate Tischs whose name is on buildings at NYU), and she has a tattoo????
Same thing happened to my friend Fulk.
Kelvin Ransey played in the NBA, most notably for Portland, in the first half of the 80s.
Crimso said...
"By the way, you know what would be a great name for a kid? Celsius. For a boy, of course. If it's a girl, we're calling her Fahrenheidi."
So now you're Rankine science geek names for kids?
5/20/18, 10:42 AM
Crimso, it was a Stirling effort.
Isn't that tatoo prohibition a few pages away from how to treat your slaves? I prefer not to get my ethics from Iron Age sheep herders. Maybe it is time to get a tattoo.
Isn't that tattoo prohibition a few pages away from the extent to which it was permissible to beat you slaves? I prefer not to get my ethics from Iron Age sheepherder. Maybe it is time to get a tattoo.
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