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stranger
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Does anyone have an idea of when the expression "mother of all" came into common usage in American English? For example, Hurricane Andrew was the mother of all hurricanes. Seems to me it's a fairly recent addition.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I first heard it when Saddam Hussien referred to "the mother of all wars". I assumed its use, in english, originated there.
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old hand
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I think it might also be connected to the Catholic prayer, "Holy Mary, mother of god, the lord is with thee," which predates Hussein by a long way.
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journeyman
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Definitely not that recent, Keiva. My own sister roasted a huge Thanksgiving turkey, only to be stood up by another sister and her spouse, leaving sister #1 to eat the "mother of a turkey" alone. That was in the 70's, and it wasn't a new expression then. Sister #2 still talks about it.
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<sigh> why don't we just assign it to Eve, the mother of us all?
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Interesting, tsuwm. Quite a woman she was.
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Definitely not that recent, Keiva. [Keller] My own sister roasted a huge Thanksgiving turkey, only to be stood up by another sister and her spouse, leaving sister #1 to eat the "mother of a turkey".
Agreed that that phrase is older (and I believe it's a polite abbreviation for mother-f*cker), meaning "one hell of a big-'un".
But I don't think it's the same as "the mother of all _____". For example, your neighbor might also have another mother of a turkey on his table, another big-'un. That is, several turkeys could be "a mother of a turkey"; none is unique. In contrast, "mother of all wars" implies (to me) a unique war, unlike any other. Thus, one speaks of "a mother of a turkey", but "the mother of all wars".
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(and I believe it's a polite abbreviation for mother-f*cker)
Sorry Kieva but I knew "mother of all" before I ever even *heard the f-word ... let alone knew what it meant!
I think tsuwm (as usual) is on the right track - the Mother Of All is Eve - the Original - the Unequaled !
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Ann - in the same sense, with "the mother of all __" being a different concept than "a mother of a ___"?
If so, that is very interesting, because it suggests that the "mother of all" idiom occurs both in english and in persian -- not just something that english recently picked up from Saddam's usage.
Any idea of how the two languages, shall we say, cross-fertilized?
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Like Keiva, I never heard the expression, until it was attributed to Saddam Hussein. I suspect it was a reporter's tranlation of an Arabic phrase.
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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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father of all muck-ups Good one, doc! 
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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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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 ...
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assuming the two expressions are separate, two separate lines of inquiry came to mind, which I'll express in two separate posts for the convenience of those who use threaded mode:
1) We've been talking about "the mother of all __".
But where does "a mother of a __" from?
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and
2) Re the speculation that "the mother of all __" might be an idiom of some non-english language, and came to our attention when used by a national leader to whom that tongue was native.
Any other cases where troubles developed because political leader used an idiom, from his language, that was trannslated into english? I'm thinking of Khruschev's, "We will bury you!" Any others?
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And, while we're at it, where did "Ma, they're pickin' on me!" come from? Just asking, like.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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...and how about "no good will come of this"?
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Guys, it's a legitimate question of "words as communication/miscommunication".
But I'd expected that question #1 would have provoked the greater response. On that:
My understanding is that "a mother of a __" and mother-f*cker come from US negro slang. Prompting this question: are those phrases commonly used outside the US?
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>Guys, it's a legitimate question
guise it any way you like, it's still coarse slang (and had nothing at all to do with my question) -- I got a start when I looked in OED and found the ppl. form equated to the British slang word 'bloody'.
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stranger
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I think there is a problem here, that things that happened before the internet became extraorinarily popular in the early 1990s, tend to seem like they never happened. In particular, since we can search for usage after 1995 a lot easier than before, we have a tendency to think that the phrase "mother of all" was never used prior to Saddam Hussein's usage before the first Gulf War. But I remember that phrase very well - I knew what it meant before Saddam used it, "mother of all cookies" meant "a huge cookie". And I was raised in the U.S. And that's what I thought when "When the battle becomes a comprehensive one with all types of weapons, the deaths on the allied side will be increased with God's help. When the deaths and the dead mount on them, the infidels will leave and the flag of Alluhu Akbar will fly over the Mother of all Battles." - Saddam Hussein, Baghdad Radio, 20 January 1991 What particularly stuck in my mind, however, was a commentary I read (or heard? or watched?) back in '91 that said the conmmon American usage of that term was NOT, in fact, what Saddam meant. That commentary claimed that Saddam thought the war was literally a mother - that it would give birth to countless other wars later on. And arguably he was correct. Since the internet prior to Saddam's usage was so small, it's not a good place to look. However, Google Books has a great thing called the Ngram Viewer which shed some light on this. Go to https://books.google.com/ngrams and type in "mother of all" and you'll find it's not a terribly popular phrase, but its usage increased quite a bit in 1990. The kindred phrase "father of all" was similar in popularity, but did not get a spike in 1990.
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WELCOME,Jorg
This thread is 13 years old, find a newer one and join us. However
you may resurrect it with your good post. Hope so, at any rate good
to have you here.
----please, draw me a sheep----
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newbie
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The creator of course. And look where this has led...MOAB. Mother of all bombs. Alpha-Omega. BYOB to the apocalypse.
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