By CINDY CHANG

LOS ANGELES-
　　At a tattoo parlor her four years ago, Shad Magness had two Chinese characters etched in a prominent spot on his arm. He assumed that the translation in the sample book –“one love”-was correct.

　　Six months later, when Mr. Magness was shopping at an office supply store, a clerk informed him that the characters on his arm meant not “one love “but” love hurts.”
Mr. Magness consulted some bilingual co-workers, who confirmed the bad news: his tattoo did indeed trumpet the pain of failed love.

　　“I’ve been kind of embarrassed about it ever since,” said Magness,31, a real estate appraiser in Orange., California. “I guess that is what you get for not being able to read it.”

　　Mr. Magness is now undergoing a series of time-consuming, painful treatments to remove the tattoo. It seems almost appropriate since his tattoo can also mean “loves the pain.”

　　Christina Norton of Redondo Beach, California, is also getting her tattoo removed with a laser. At the tattoo parlor she had been told that the character meant “truth.” ”I asked the guy, ’Are you sure?’” she recalled. “He assured me, so then I went ahead and did it.” Now she knows that without other characters her tattoo’s meaning is closer to “book.” “Ever since I found out, I was like, I have to get it off,” she said.

　　James Morel, the chief executive officer of Dr. Tattoff, tattoo removal specialists in Beverly Hills, California, says his clinics sign up five or six new patients a week ago, like Mr. Magness and Ms. Norton, having discovered that their Chinese tattoos mean something drastically different from what they intended.
Sports Illustrate recently featured an article on National Basketball Association players’ Chinese tattoos, quoting the Chicago Bulls center Tyson Chandler as saying he checked with Yao Ming of the Houston Rockets before getting a tattoo meaning “love.”

　　The pop star Britney Spears was apparently not so cautious. She reportedly got a tattoo she thought said “mysterious” but actually meant “strange.”

　　Errors are common enough to be good businessman for tattoo removal specialists and to fuel a blog, www.hanzismatter.com, which posts photographs of botched tattoos. Some unfortunate examples have included ”power piglet,” “heavily woman roof,” and ”motherly beast blessing.” And Shawn Marion, a basketball player with the Phoenix Suns, thought that his nickname, “The Matrix,” had been tattooed on his leg, but the translation of the inscription is more like “demon bird moth ball.”

　　Because they must rely on the word of others to ascertain the meaning of the characters, the tattoo owners are vulnerable to honest mistakes as well as malicious jokesters.

　　“Everybody here that does tattoos, we understand that if you combine the characters together, they have a different meaning,” said Ricky Sturdivant, a tattoo artist in Illinois. “We try to express that to the customers, but sometimes they want us to do it anyway.”

The words besides the picture:

　　Shawn Marion’s tattoo in Chinese characters, near right, does not mean “the Matrix,” as he had hoped, but “demon bird moth balls.” Christina Norton thought hers meant “truth,” but the meaning is closer to “book.”