Ancient Greek Inscription help needed

September 20, 2015 11:48 AM

We are painting a 40-foot mural for a children's swimming pool. It will (sort of inevitably) include Atlantis themes, and we want to include a little joke in the form of an Ancient Greek inscription that says something like "always blow your bubbles" (something the instructors are always telling the little kids as part of their swimming instruction). Can you help translate this into the correct glyphs? Would be nice if it could avoid being translatable as "never stop farting" but one cannot have everything, I know ;)
posted by aesop to Writing & Language (2 answers total)

For little kids, I would just avoid doing an ancient language altogether. They're never going to understand it, so what's the point? I would instead just go with an ancient Greek looking font (V's for U's and etc). Also, is there space for mermaids playing volleyball?
posted by sexyrobot at 3:15 PM on September 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Well, I dusted off some parts of the old brain and will take a stab at this, I guess. I would go with, 'πομφόλυγας ποιεῖτε', which literally means 'Make bubbles, you guys!' I've based this on a particular passage in Plutarch's Moralia where he is literally describing how air plus water 'makes bubbles'. I have changed the conjugation of the verb to match your needs.

(Qualifications: a 25-year-old minor in Classical Languages, which included eight semesters of private tutelage in Ancient Greek.)

(Note: this answer has yet to be approved by languagehat, to whom I bow in all matters of language and/or hat.)

(Another note: this has nothing to do with farting, which has a completely separate -- though hilarious -- etymology.)
posted by trip and a half at 3:55 PM on September 20, 2015 [4 favorites]