[Ads-l] "Your Mother" (Not in OED)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

JL's magnificent "Random House Historical Dictionary of American
Slang, Volume 1: A to G" (1994) has an impressive entry on page 835
titled:

[Begin excerpt]
go fuck (yourself) go to hell! get out! be damned!—usu. considered
vulgar. Also vars. with other obj., esp. go fuck your mother. [Go fuck
your mother is universally perceived as the most offensive and
provocative idiomatic imprecation in English.]
[End excerpt]

I see now that HDAS has the four citations containing the phrase "your
mother" listed in my first message: 1932, 1951, 1955, and 1969.
Apologies for not citing JL's work.

The 1891, 1929, and 1937 citations in my second message are from
Jesse's wonderful book "The F Word" (2024).

The 1922 citation was located by me (unless someone found it earlier).

Garson

On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 4:35 PM Jonathan Lighter
<00001aad181a2549-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> HDAS 1 has further info. Garson's antedatings are valuable.
>
> BTW, several pre-1920 exx. of "son of a bitch" are in contexts where the
> recipient, before getting violent, says something like, "You can't talk
> about my mother like that!"
>
> JL
>
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 3:34 PM ADSGarson O'Toole <
> 00001aa1be50b751-dmarc-request at listserv.uga.edu> wrote:
>
> > Here is the phrase "fuck your mother" without censorship used as an
> > insult in a transcript from a 1922 court case. The phrase is in
> > English, but it is a translation.
> >
> > Court of Appeals of the State of New York
> > Jennie Trachtenberg against Bessie Trachtenberg and Max Trachtenberg
> > Case on Appeal
> > Court Date: February 6, 1922
> > Quote Page 48
> >
> >
> > https://www.google.com/books/edition/New_York_Court_of_Appeals_Records_and_Br/bowPM9yMofwC?hl=en&gbpv=1&bsq=fuck
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > By Mr Dickstein
> > Q. What did you understand it to be?
> > A. It is an insultment of a woman to use such a words. I could not
> > explain it in English. There is no such word in English. (Translated
> > by the interpreter.) "Fuck your mother."
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> >
> > On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 3:03 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
> > <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> > >
> > > Jesse Sheidlower also has this pertinent entry in "The F Word" (2024)
> > >
> > > [Begin excerpt]
> > > your mother! Especially Juvenile. (used as a derisive retort). [It is
> > > widely perceived that the phrase abbreviates go fuck your mother and
> > > is therefore especially provoking; it is also reminiscent of the
> > > “dozens,” a game of ritually exchanging insults.]
> > >
> > > [1891 in J. F. Dobie Rainbow in the Morning (1965) 172: Talk about one
> > > thing, talk about another; / But ef you talk about me, I’m gwain to
> > > talk about your mother.]
> > >
> > > [1929 E. Hemingway Letter (June 7) in Selected Letters (1981) 298: In
> > > a purely conversational way in a latin language in an argument one man
> > > says to another “Cogar su madre!”]
> > >
> > > 1937 C. Odets Golden Boy 243: [On telephone:] I’ll bring him right
> > > over … you can take my word—the kid’s a cock-eyed wonder … your mother
> > > too!
> > > [End excerpt]
> > >
> > > On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 2:50 PM ADSGarson O'Toole
> > > <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> > > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >
>
>
> --
> "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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