Inktober Does NOT Mean Tattoo-ober · 1 October 2022
Just in case you were wondering, Inktober is not the month to get 31 tattoos.
Words are funny. You can say one word and conjure up many different meanings. Sometimes those meanings are merely nuances. Connotations. Subtleties. Words like “old” or “different” come to mind. We can use them in conversation to mean subtlety different things depending on the context. Or even on how the speaker says the word. I have been called old and different. Sometimes those words bring the image is of somebody who is mature and unique. But other times the image is of somebody who is decrepit and odd.
While these words with crazy nuances are fun to think about, there are other words that should only have one meaning but for some reason or other have more than one meaning. And some of these words give us vastly different images.
Ink is one of those words.
Ink used to have just one meaning. Ink. The stuff that comes out of pens. The stuff that goes on paper to create words or images. Ink. Simple. But culture has changed the word. Now, ink can mean tattoo.
Culture is an interesting thing. It changes over time. It morphs in subtle and not so subtle ways. And when the culture changes, words change too. Think about it. If you have been around for very long, you remember a time when ink was merely the stuff that put words or images on the page. And then as more people started putting ink under their skin, ink got a new definition. Ink became synonymous with tattoo. (By the way. The same thing can be said of tat. But only the initiated or crossword solvers know that the original meaning of tat is to make lace through some intricate process.)
At any rate.
I did not think of this word and cultural phenomenon until a friend of mine commented on my Inktober piece. R told me that he thought it would be great if we both got tattoos. He would get more ink and I would get my first. Which is not going to happen. I made that clear. No ink, no tattoos, for me.
Still, the notion that words change so drastically is an amazing phenomenon to me. I never would have thought of Inktober as a time to get tattoos. But it was one of R’s first thoughts. “Let’s get tattoos.” It is even more funny because he is an artist and should have thought of ink on the paper when he saw Inktober. What was he thinking?
Then again, he was probably yanking my chain. Regardless of how much of an artist my friend is, R likes to razz me as much as he can. I think he thinks of it as his word art. After all, he knows that as cool as I think his body art is, I do not want any of it. There is just no draw for me. (No pun intended.)
Well, I hope that clears things up. Inktober is a time for drawing. On paper. And it is a time to share those drawings with others. But even if you think of ink as tattoos, remember that Inktober is not the month to get 31 tattoos. At least not for me.
© 2022 Michael T. Miyoshi
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