Talk:mother of all

Etymology
There was a very limited discussion at Etymology scriptorium/2019/February. I've edited the entry to note that it certainly predates Hussein. - -sche (discuss) 00:23, 13 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Some of the comments in the discussion on StackExchange point out that occurrences of mother of all that predate 1990 usually do not have the same meaning as the one calqued after Arabic. It's easy to see how the Arabic "epitome, most extreme instance" meaning grew out of certain instances of the older "origin" metaphor, but it's important to distinguish between the two, and pay careful attention in every pre-1990 quotation that "epitome" is really the only possible interpretation. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:25, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * Also, Online Etymology Dictionary is not the best source and does not support its assertion that the idiom was already in use (in this meaning) prior to 1990; "mother of commonwealths" is unclear as to its precise meaning (no context is provided) and lacks all. I'm sceptical in both directions. I now think that it's well possible that the idiom mother of all in the sense of "epitome" was basically unknown in English before 1990 and only found very occasionally at best, or in ambiguous contexts. That said, the granddaddy of idiom, which does seem to have been somewhat common, may well have facilitated the adoption of the calque from Arabic in English. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:32, 16 February 2020 (UTC)
 * It's not just "grandaddy of all X", there's also e.g. "father of all battles" (although that one seems like it might also be a calque of some other language), "grandmother of all headaches" (though that may postdate and derive from "mother of all"). But you/stackexchange are right that the sense of most of the instances of "mother of all" from before 1990 is different from Hussein's sense. And The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2006), page 1327, "mother of all", does claim the use derives from Hussein, although even that is not as high a quality of source as I'd like. Still, I'll be! I've revised the entry. - -sche (discuss) 00:16, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
 * When I added this, my source was the OED. They say: "in quot. 1990 [i.e. a BBC translation of Saddam's speech] after Arabic umm al-maʿārik mother of battles (see also note below); something that is outstanding or exemplary (in magnitude, importance, etc.); anything that is definitive in character, or that is the epitome of its kind; frequently humorous. Cf. the father and mother of a —— at father n. Phrases 8. Note: Popularized as a catchphrase by Saddam Hussein (b. Saddam bin Hussein at-Takriti 1937), President of Iraq from 1979, with reference to the Gulf War (see quot. 1990). Perhaps reinforced in later use by the euphemistic use of mother to mean ‘motherfucker’ (see sense 7 and motherfucker n. 2b), hence the occasional occurrence of the form mutha in the phrase." Ƿidsiþ 08:23, 17 February 2020 (UTC)
 * The pointer to motherfucker is a good one. Makes complete sense. Thanks, the entry looks good now. I don't have any remaining complaints. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:20, 18 February 2020 (UTC)


 * On second thought, it just occurred me that both early examples given by the Online Etymology Dictionary are really poor, both the mother of commonwealths for English and the Mother of Believers for Arabic, because they are easier to understand in the more immediate figurative sense of "origin, source" than of "epitome", and Ayesha being a woman only reinforces this. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:11, 29 July 2023 (UTC)