MISS MANNERS: Watch display of foreign words

Dear Miss Manners: I am a sophomore in college, working toward an Asian studies major. Since I started learning Japanese and Chinese, I began taking notice of Chinese characters on T-shirts, tattoos and other places.

One day, I had a conversation with a lady who had a tattoo on her upper arm. When I mentioned my major, she brought up the tattoo, but I quickly realized that the tattoo didn’t say what she thought it did.

She told me it said “butterfly,” but I knew it actually meant bird. I didn’t point this out but felt a little guilty for letting her continue to think it meant butterfly.

I have seen some places that offer temporary tattoos whose listings are completely wrong , such as listing “heart” as “love” and vice versa, or writing “peace” with only one symbol (it’s a two-character word).

I know there’s no tactful way to approach a stranger about this, but if I’m talking to someone, such as the lady I mentioned, is there any way to point out what I read the character as?

Gentle Reader: While Miss Manners appreciates your desire to rescue people from the danger of being misread, your instinct about not correcting the would-be Madame Butterfly was even kinder.

What exactly would you have expected her to do about it?

One rule about correcting others is that you do so only if the error is something that can be easily and immediately remedied – the Spinach on the Tooth Rule. Another is you not shame innocent people by demonstrating that you know more than they do, in this case, the customers.

Those who sell misleadingly are not innocent, and since they don’t seem to care, you might direct your efforts to their suppliers. But even then, Miss Manners recommends proceeding with polite caution.

She is given to understand that these are not always one-on-one translations, and correctors are notoriously in danger of encountering more knowledgeable correctors.