Arabic Speaker Tells Woman What Her Tattoo Really Says

There's always a risk associated with getting a tattoo in a language you don't know, as you can never quite be sure what it says.

Over the years, people have been horrified to learn their permanent inkings are actually swear words or menu items.

And that's exactly what happened to a woman, Lauryn, in Tennessee, who had an inspirational quote in Arabic tattooed on her arm, or so she thought.

The woman's pal, who calls herself KT, shared a clip to her TikTok account, @kaliyyahhh, capturing the moment an Arabic-speaking salesman delivered the bad news to her, which can be seen here.

The video, uploaded on Tuesday, kicks in as the pair are already poring over Lauryn's right arm, as he appears to be reading the tattoo aloud. Lauryn has her phone out as she appears to be showing the man what her tattoo is meant to say.

He looks at the screen, before correcting the lettering, as the on-screen caption quotes the man, who tells the ink fan: "Google lied to you."

It seems some rogue letters or symbols have been added, changing the wording, as the man explains: "He put this in the beginning, he put this extra."

The salesman then takes Lauryn's arm and breaks down where the tattoo artist went wrong, as the on-screen text reads "it's not making any sense," quoting one of the onlookers.

Holding out hope her tattoo still resembles what she thinks, she asks: "It's backwards, you think?"

Sadly the Arabic expert informs her she needs to ditch some ink in order for her tattoo to read what she intended. "If you can just take this out, it makes a big difference," he says in the clip, viewed nearly 2 million times.

After it blew up on the site, KT shared another clip, finally clarifying what Lauryn thinks the tattoo says, and what it really means.

"What's on her arm: her tattoo is supposed to say 'be at peace not in pieces.' What's on her arm says 'be at peace not cut up.' which is not completely wrong, it still has the same meaning though that's why I said we all know what it means."

Addressing comments from people, KT continued: "And it's still cute, and no she's not going to get it covered up. No she's not embarrassed about it, no she didn't get mad when he told her because like I said he was joking in front of us, we all laughed, not at her, with her too.

"It was very nice of him to actually sit down and explain it to her. And yes she did get somebody to write it out for her but she liked the way it looked on Google and I'm saying it's her body she can do what she wants with it. And yes he did still like the tattoo very much."

Commenting on the clip, Shubway said: "I work at a tattoo shop and we always tell clients, if you want something in another language, you have to bring it in so we're not to blame if it's written wrong since no one at our shop reads or writes in another language."

"Well the problem is that play on words will never translate correctly. Peace and pieces sound alike but this isn't the case in Arabic," Hermosavidaemma thought.

While A6hizzle noted: "At least it's not something completely different."

Newsweek reached out to KT for comment.