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I think that the expression "mother of all ----" is pretty damned old. I remember reading it in one of the classics back when I was still reading the classics because I had to rather than because I wanted to.
The expression could just as easily be "the father of all ----". If English were German, it most likely would be. We refer to the motherland, German refers to the fatherland.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Dear CK: It would be very interesting to know the name of the classic in which that phrase was used. I found a site in which this phrase was discussed, and there was no citation of a use in English before the Saddam Hussein story. http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/index.pperl?date=20000822
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Bill, I can't remember which book I read it in. I have a couple of shelves full of classic novels, and it could be any one of them. And the context may not have been the same. For instance, it could have been something like "Gaia, the mother of all plants" or something.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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it may well be that it is Moslem in origin. Muslims believe that the expression 'Mother of the Book' in the Qur'an refers to its heavenly origin and that the earthly copy of the Qur'an is the tangible expression of the intangible 'Mother of the Book'.
and my arch suggestion that we ascribe the source to Eve was irony, a response to the notion that it stems from the 'Hail Mary'.
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Dear CK: My thought was that you might have seen it in a book written about Arabia, whose author might have encountered it if able to read Arabic. But I do not believe it had any wide English usage until Saddam Hussein. Incidentally your suggestion of "Gaia, the mother of all plants" is hardly an illustration of the quotation. And if "plants" is a typo for "planets" that would be absurd.
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addict
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The expression could just as easily be "the father of all ----". If English were German, it most likely would be.
And father of all muck-ups is much more polite...
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Carpal Tunnel
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father of all muck-ups Good one, doc! 
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old hand
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old hand
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"Sorry Kieva but I knew "mother of all" before I ever even *heard the f-word ... let alone knew what it meant!"
Sorry wow, but this don't stack up. Remember my recent post about the derogatory "jerk"? Call me naive, but for 42 years I didn't realise it had anything to do with "jerk off". Mind you I hadn't stopped to think about it.
stales
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Perhaps the phrase the mother of all ___ *did come from the Arabic and was picked up into English as easily as it was because it resonates so well with the phrase a mother of a ___.
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yes, i think you are right, to express the same idea, we used to say "it was a war to end all wars" or "a party to end all parties" and this was even shortend to "the end" and a really good looking guy could be "the end" .
when hussain used (or was translated as saying) "the mother of all wars.." it resonated. it wasn't the same tired old cliche, "a war to end all wars" but it had the same flavor. and it was close enought to "a mother of a ______" that we all understood it.
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