Rihanna says her tattoo is correct

Popeater noted yesterday that Rihanna may have a typo in her tattoo. They say the “rebelle fleur” on her neck should be “fleur rebelle” because in French, adjectives follow the nouns they modify.

Today, Rihanna put her palm up to the computer and said, “Uh-uh, girlfriend. Internet, you be wrong.” I don’t know if she actually said that, but she claims “rebelle fleur” is right. In an alleged text to her tattoo artist, Rihanna wrote, “rebelle fleur translates to rebel flower, NOT rebelious flower, its 2 nouns so in that case fleur does not HAVE to be first! Fyi, cuz they will ask.”

However, most of the commenters on OK! are still saying her tattoo makes no sense. Commenter Dough Smith says, “The problem here is that she’s trying to use what linguists call a “noun adjunct,” which is when a noun can act as an adjective if you stick it in front of another noun. For instance, “peace flower.” The word “peace” is not an adjective, but acts as one in this situation. Adding to the confusion is the fact that “rebelle” is both an adjective and a noun, like many words of that type in French. Unfortunately for Rihanna, she’s using it as a noun despite the fact that the French don’t do the whole adjunct business, and so even if it translates directly to something that makes sense to her, it makes no sense in French.”

Note that I understood the words Doug wrote but I still don’t know what it means when he put them all together. He could have called me a dickhead and said my mother was a whore for all I know. But it sounded smart, so I just nodded my head and smiled.