What's the deal with all these tats?

I don't get it. I'm green enough as it is. And don't you think I'm pretty enough as is? Don't answer that.

Tattoo actually has several meanings, just like me.

1a. An evening drum beat or bugle call signaling soldiers or sailors to return to their quarters.

  b. A military march accompanied by music and other sound effects such as volleys of gunfire.

  c. A continuous tapping or drumming sound.  

2. A permanent design made on the skin by injecting dyes beneath the skin.

You didn't know that, did you?

There are, in fact, two words tattoo, as the meanings above and word history below indicate, the linguist Robert Beard writes at his excellent site, alphaDictionary. 

This implies that there are, as well, two verbs tattoo. The first means to drum or thump successively, as to tattoo the table nervously with your fingers. The second verb tattoo means simply to implant a graphic tattoo under the skin. A person who makes such implantations is a tattooist. In the following sentence, it is difficult to tell which of the two tattoos is intended: "When the rear wheel of Harley's motorcycle spun in the mire, it tattooed his back with mud spatters.

History: Tattoo in the first sense comes from Dutch taptoe "tap-shut", where taprefers to the beer spigot in a tavern. The Dutch bugle call, therefore, not only calls soldiers back to camp, but lets tavern owners know that it is time to halt the flow of beer. That same Dutch word tap is the origin of the final bugle call of the evening or the one played at military funerals, known as taps. The second tattoo, like the like-sounding taboo, is a Marquesan word brought to England from the Polynesian islands by Captain James Cook. This is why tattooing was first seen in the West on sailors. Today, of course, the craze to imitate the Polynesians has spread pretty much throughout the entire industrialized world.