How to Learn Tattoo Lingo
Have you ever walked into a tattoo shop or gone to a tattoo convention and it seemed as though everyone was speaking a different language? Like many subcultures of society, the tattoo community has invented some words of their own. Whether you call it tattoo slang or tattoo lingo, by learning what key phrases mean, you will have a better understanding of these conversations.
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Instructions
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Hang out at a tattoo shop and listen to conversations the tattoo artists have with their patrons. Make note of the words you don't understand the meanings of and ask someone in the know what they mean. Now, this technique may seem embarrassing at first, but this is one of the best ways to catalog the words associated with tattoo lingo.
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Attend tattoo conventions and acquire more diverse knowledge about tattoo lingo. As with other slang words, the meanings of some words may vary, depending on where the speaker hails. You might find that words mean one thing in your neck of the woods, but mean something completely different in another region of the U.S. or from country to country.
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Look through tattoo magazines. By reading the articles and even sometimes the advertisements in tattoo magazines, you can pick up some of the commonly used words and phrases bandied around the tattoo community. This will save you the embarrassment of having to ask someone what a word means or misusing a word and possibly insulting someone. "Tattoo Flash" magazine is a good example since there's a tattoo slang word right in the title, "Flash," which refers to tattoo design samples that are usually displayed on a tattoo studio's wall.
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Read books on tattooing, including guidebooks for those thinking about getting a tattoo. Many of these books will also include some common tattoo lingo key words or phrases. "The Tattoo Encyclopedia: A Guide to Choosing Your Tattoo" and "The Not-Just-Skin-Deep Guide to Getting a Tattoo" by Terisa Green are two books that not only include some new words for you, but also some good advice on how to choose a tattoo and what to look for when choosing a tattoo studio and artist.
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Find some fun sites with slang words and other sites with translations of professional terms such as an autoclave. Although you don't technically need to know what this device is, it could actually help you make a wise decision some day. An autoclave is basically a high-quality pressure cooker which is regulated in some states to ensure that items placed inside will be sterilized well enough to not pass on anything infectious to the next person being tattooed. So, if you walk into a tattoo shop and you hear an artist say, "Hey, the autoclave failed its spore test," then you might want to rethink having ink done at this shop. What this sentence translates to is that the machine they use to sterilize items such as the metal tubes used during tattooing is not cleaning properly and all the items cleaned it in recently may still be infected.
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Tips & Warnings
Don't be surprised to learn that common words actually have different meanings in the tattoo world. For example, a virgin is someone who has never been tattooed.
It's not uncommon to misunderstand what some words mean in tattoo lingo. For example, many people outside the tattoo community think a scratcher is someone who scratches their new tattoos when in fact they are what tattoo artists refer to as people who tattoo for money without the benefit of proper training. Professional tattoo artists loathe scratchers who often tattoo out of their house not only without the benefit of formal training but also without proper sanitary procedures in place. This can lead to them spreading diseases and providing shoddy work that makes the tattoo industry look bad.
Not all tattoo slang is hard to decipher, as some words are quite obvious. For example, a tattoo sleeve is simply a tattoo that covers the entire arm from shoulder to elbow all the way around, just like the sleeve of shirt would. Other simple terms include aftercare--how to care for a tattoo after you've gotten it; cover-up--tattooing over an existing tattoo to cover up what you don't like; and of course getting inked--getting tattooed.
It's fun to know the lingo of the tattoo world, but what you don't know could actually hurt you. For example, let's say someone tells you shouldn't go to a certain artist because they are known to have a lot of blow-outs. What the person is trying to tell you is that the artist has a tendency to go too deep or holds the needle at too much of an angle while they're tattooing, which can cause a fuzzy shadow around part or all of the tattoo.
