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.

It was an off-the-cuff example of the use of the phrase where size was not the issue, while parenthood was. It was not intended to be an authoritative quote from anywhere.

Personally, I think the suggestion that it necessarily comes from the Arabic is off-base, but I can't find any support in my references - for or against.


The idiot also known as Capfka ...