thy mother

 

So I was searching Wikipedia for the phrase “your mother” (as you do), and I found this little gem:

Historic usage

Although this may appear to be a recent phenomenon, one can find variants in classical literature. William Shakespeare used such a device in Act I Scene 1 of Timon of Athens:

Painter: “Y’are a dog.”
Apemantus: Thy mother’s of my generation. What’s she, if I be a dog?”

Also in Act IV, Scene II of Titus Andronicus, Aaron taunts his lover’s sons:

Demetrius: “Villain, what hast thou done?”
Aaron: “That which thou canst not undo.”
Chiron: “Thou hast undone our mother.”
Aaron: “Villain, I have done thy mother.”

This entry was written by daynemay and posted on June 9, 2008 at 9:42 am and filed under Journal. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

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