This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 1392 the mother of all episodes on how to make something big in English.
Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 150 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection, with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
How can you express in English when something is huge in your mind?
Today, get a native phrase to show the scale of something to make people hear your point of view.
Do you ever feel like your English is good but not quite where you want it to be?
Maybe you can have conversations but you still hesitate when expressing complex ideas.
Maybe you know what you want to say. but you can't always say it naturally.
If that sounds familiar, our B2 English fluency course was designed for you.
You'll learn how to speak more naturally, express yourself with confidence and finally stop feeling stuck at the intermediate level.
This week, you can save $50 on our basic plan or save $100 on our personal coach plan.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash B2.
That's allearsenglish.com slash letter B number two.
Hey, Lindsay, how's it going?
Hey, Michelle, it's going pretty well.
It's going pretty well.
How about you?
What's happening?
Oh, not too much.
Not too much.
Oh, my gosh.
I had the mother of all pizzas the other day.
Are you saying that was a big pizza or an intense pizza or like a flavorful pizza?
It was just the best pizza ever.
Oh, that's awesome.
Oh, that makes me think of the ice cream sundaes I used to have at Friendly's as a kid.
Did you have Friendly's in New Jersey?
Oh, no, you grew up in Maryland.
Yeah, I grew up in Maryland, but yeah, we had Friendly's, yeah.
Okay, so that's only on the East Coast, though.
Friendly's is a chain that doesn't exist in the Midwest or in the middle of the country.
Oh, is that right?
Yeah, no, I think so.
I didn't know that.
But they're known for their ice cream sundaes.
And we used to go and get the mother of all ice cream sundaes.
It was the super, the super.
And it was huge.
And we would get that with our friends in high school.
I mean, there were like three things to do in our town.
Get ice cream, watch a movie.
That's funny.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So if I said the mother of all pizzas, it's like, oh, my gosh, the most intense, delicious extreme.
Right.
Yeah.
So, yeah, that is a way to to express it.
So we're going to be talking about this phrase, the mother of all blank today.
Lindsay, do you use this expression?
So this is interesting.
I used to use this more.
So this is a phrase that I remember hearing a lot more in the 90s, actually, than now.
So I think this phrase at this point might be a little bit on the dated side, but you might still hear it.
I remember using this kind of in high school, middle school to express something being huge.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't know.
I mean, for me, I feel like I still Yeah, you you definitely would hear it.
I can't remember where I heard this phrase, but I heard it recently.
And I said, Ah, I have to do this one.
So it will it will come at you at some point.
But yeah, you know you'll have to.
You'll have to see what kinds of things you hear when you listen to people speaking English.
For sure.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting.
So we know that, you know, you know, different phrases come from different languages.
And we've seen online guys that we think that this may come from Arabic.
And that's really interesting for us because we like to know where phrases come from.
So, you know, let us know, chime in if you speak Arabic.
Let us know if you have this phrase in your language.
It's kind of cool.
English can be a big mix of different languages.
It's fascinating.
Oh, I love it.
I love when I hear you know, I've had students tell me oh, certain phrases oh, they have that in their language and this and that.
So it's interesting how we can, you know like get things from each other different words, but also idioms as well.
Yeah, super, super interesting.
Well but Michelle, before we go into this anymore, I do want to say thank you to some of our listeners who have reviewed us on the show.
Is that okay?
How does that sound?
That sounds more than okay, Lindsay.
I would love to hear it.
All right.
So thank you, too.
Let's see.
Thank you, too.
YRI223 from the US, Sherwin from China, Nasrik22 from the US, Beidad Kian from the US, Zhao Han from the US, Mohamed Reza Alizadeh from the US and someone from Russia.
Cool669 from the US.
Eduardo Lopez from the, a lot of people in the US.
It's interesting, Michelle.
Hassan Gavidel from Iran.
Guys, let us know, you know, what you think of the show.
Go and leave us a review because we want to read your name out loud.
Thank you for these reviews.
These are great reviews, Michelle, by the way.
Oh, awesome.
Thank you guys so much.
It means so much to us.
We really appreciate it.
Yeah, really good stuff.
Really good stuff.
All right, let's dive back into it.
So yeah, so gosh, this phrase, the mother of all.
I mean, Lindsay, our listeners, you're never going to see this phrase in your textbook.
No way.
No way.
Guys, we try to get away from textbook learning because textbooks are so limited, right?
I mean, we want to bring you the real English.
So this is not a textbook phrase, Michelle.
No, no, no.
Exactly.
So yeah, this, the mother of all something, right?
It's basically something super extreme, super amazing, super something, right?
So let's do a few examples.
So the first one is, this bakery is the mother of all delicious food.
Yeah.
Or we had the mother of all arguments last night.
Oh, boy.
So that means it's the biggest possible argument.
Yeah.
Something really just got really big.
Okay.
What else, Michelle?
Or this is the mother of all job interviews for me.
I'm so nervous.
Yeah.
Okay.
So just indicating that something is huge for you or in your mind.
Right, right.
Exactly.
Exactly.
And this is a really helpful way to add color to your English.
So instead of saying something is very or extreme, right?
Like, oh, this bakery is very good, right?
This is so much more interesting to say, oh, it's the mother of all delicious food.
It just brings so much more to the connection here.
It's a very natural phrase.
And it does make something sound very exaggerated.
So that's important to know as well.
Yeah, but we do exaggerate in the US a lot, right?
And we've done episodes on this, guys.
We like to make our statements huge.
I don't know why that's the truth.
Maybe there's just so much noise out there we have to be heard.
I don't know, but exaggeration is a very American English thing.
Yeah.
Right, right.
And Lindsay, I feel like this phrase can be used for both positive things and negative things.
Like the bakery is the mother of all delicious food.
Well, that's clearly a positive thing.
The mother of all arguments that's clearly a negative thing.
So you guys, you can take it pretty clearly from the context and what?
What are we describing when we say the mother of all?
Whatever we say next, we can kind of figure out whether it's a good thing or a bad thing.
Yeah, I agree with you.
Interesting.
Very cool.
Okay, so what else, Michelle?
What can we do?
Can we show our listeners some examples here?
Yeah, for sure.
All right, let's do a few more.
So, Lindsay, you want to start this first one off?
Okay, yeah, here we go.
So, all right.
So, Michelle, what did you eat for lunch?
Oh my gosh, Lindsay.
I had the mother of all sandwiches today.
It was turkey and brie and it was so delicious.
There was also a little bit of apple on it.
I loved it.
Oh yeah.
That's very New York too.
You know, like in New York, at those delis that you see, everywhere you get these, these massive sandwiches.
Yeah, definitely.
Oh, I love, I love them.
Oh my God.
What is your favorite deli in New York city?
Do you have a favorite?
Mmm, that is a good question.
Honestly, I can't think of one off the top of my head, but just like pretty much anywhere you go you can find a really good sandwich.
And that's one of the things I love about New York is yeah, you just get the.
Oh, it's so delicious.
Any sandwich you get is going to be good.
Lindsay, what's your favorite?
Yeah, what's my favorite?
I don't have a name of a deli, to be honest, but I do have so many delis.
Oh, my favorite sandwich.
Oh, my god, I'm kind of a veg, a vegetarian.
I don't um, really love like the, the meats, like the lunch meats, but that's really what most people would get on those huge sandwiches.
It's like the lunch meats, the turkey, the ham, the uh, I don't know whatever it is um, but I
I don't know.
I like portobello mushroom burgers, that kind of thing.
Or I like a good like avocado and hummus.
But sandwiches in general, the bread, such good stuff.
Or if it's coming to breakfast, egg and cheese.
Love that stuff.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, yeah.
Good egg and cheese.
Definitely.
So, Lindsay, all right.
Should we do another one?
Yeah, let's do it.
Okay.
Leave us an honest rating and review, and we'll do our best to read your name out loud on the show.
Thanks for listening.
All right, Lindsay, I had the mother of all tests today.
I was so nervous.
Oh, yeah?
How'd you do?
I think fine, but boy, that was hard.
Oh, yeah.
So you're really emphasizing that that experience was heavy for you, right?
It was significant.
And again, I like what you said before, Michelle, getting away from using very.
How boring is very?
And it sounds very, very repetitive if we use very too much.
Right, right.
If I just said to you, Lindsay, oh, I had a very hard test today.
I was so nervous.
Okay, that's fine.
Like, there's nothing wrong with that.
But guys, we want to give you – our goal here is to you know, make you have much more to say right.
Exactly.
We, you know, imagine how it would feel to become fluent and fearless in English.
Yeah. is really just about changing your vocabulary, having that variety.
That is going to make you fluent.
That is going to make you fearless when you have a ton of different ways to say something.
Yeah, I love that, Michelle.
That is so true.
Very well said.
Thank you.
So are there other ways that we could say this, by the way?
Yeah.
Sure.
Well, we could use the word ultimate, right?
Okay.
Yeah, this is common too nowadays, I think.
Yeah.
Like, for example, that was the ultimate dinner.
Thank you.
Delicious.
Yay.
Have you been cooking lately at home?
Are you guys cooking a lot or... A lot.
Yes, we are.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I imagine we are too a little bit.
A little bit of cooking here and there, exploring new recipes.
We get the Bon Appetit magazine.
So we like to kind of take those recipes and explore a little bit if we can.
That's cool, that's fun.
It's always fun to try out new recipes.
Yeah um, another thing you could say is the best of the best.
Okay, so this designer is amazing.
Really, she's the best of the best.
Yeah, okay.
That's a fun one.
So this is kind of putting a positive spin on what you're saying, right?
Yes, yes, yes.
You wouldn't use this on something negative, yeah.
But if you wanted to say something was negative...
The very worst, right?
The very worst.
The party that party was terrible.
Really, it was the very worst.
Okay, right.
And we're using very here, but we're using it as a part of something else.
So it is it was it's a little bit more unique sounding.
It's different.
It's kind of like you're using it as like a superlative.
It's interesting.
It was the very worst.
It's different from saying it's very bad or very awful or very delicious, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.
For sure.
So Lindsay, I just wanted before we go, let's have a little conversation.
I mean, about what we have extreme feelings about.
So Lindsay, so what do you think is the mother of all pets?
Well, in terms of, well, I've just gotten my new puppy for the first time, right?
As of the time we're recording this, we just got him a few weeks ago.
And that seems like the mother of all experiences in terms of having a pet would be having a dog just because he's more of a companion than, I guess, than a cat.
Right.
Like he he's going to need to run a ton.
So we're going to run him every day, an hour or something.
But a companion like a friend and he comes when I come home, he comes up to me, wags his tail.
Cats don't really do that.
They just look at you like, why are you here?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Awesome.
Yeah, I agree with you.
I feel like dogs are the best.
What about the mother of all restaurants?
Lindsay, have you found a restaurant in Denver that you think is the mother of all restaurants?
Like, how's the food scene there?
Oh, that's such a hard question, Michelle.
My gosh.
Yeah.
I mean, not, not yet, but I would say that there's a bar down the street that had a stout.
I love stout beer.
So they had stout month in February, and that was the mother of all celebrations, because we had a chance to pick from a huge variety of stout beers.
So I like that place.
That's cool.
That's cool.
Yeah, I have in New York, there's this Indian restaurant.
Oh, my gosh, it is my favorite.
It's the mother of all restaurants for me.
For sure.
Is it is it like in that what they call it Curry Hill area?
No, no, actually, it's not there.
It's on the Upper West Side.
Okay.
Nice.
It's just so, so good.
So, yeah, I'll have to go back there soon, I hope.
Yes.
And for you, what about the mother of all TV shows?
Last one.
Oh, gosh.
Jeez, Michelle, this is tough.
These are tough questions.
Oh, I can't come.
I don't know.
I'm going to throw that back over to you because I can't come up with anything.
Okay.
Well, mine is obviously Friends.
Of course.
Of course.
Of course.
Everybody knows that Friends is, I mean...
Anybody who listens to the show a lot knows that I love Friends.
So to me, that is the mother of all TV shows.
Yeah, I mean that.
Or I would say also Seinfeld, if we're talking about legendary TV shows, right that last throughout the years don't age.
I think Friends has aged more than Seinfeld.
Just because Friends is like a little in my mind it's a little more trendy, like they're younger.
I don't know, that kind of stuff in my mind can go out of style a little bit, but Seinfeld is just pure humor.
And it's still dated.
You watch those episodes.
They're still kind of dated, but dated in a funny way.
Does that make sense?
I don't know.
We could get into a bigger debate about this.
I love both of them pretty much just the same.
I like Friends slightly more, but I definitely agree with a lot of what you say about Seinfeld.
However, I will say that surprisingly, Friends has become extremely popular again, whereas I don't know that Seinfeld is having the same kind of resurgence.
Interesting.
Yeah, I mean, I think we should have a debate.
Seinfeld versus Friends, Michelle.
I know what side you would be on.
But I love them both.
I don't even want to debate them both.
I think it's funny how I think it's almost like Friends has gone more international.
I bet our listeners know Friends.
I'm not sure if they know Seinfeld.
It's really interesting.
Because I think within the US, people may like Seinfeld better.
I think it crosses the generations more, Seinfeld.
Okay, okay, that's fair, that's fair.
Okay, we're gonna have to have a whole debate about this.
But I do love them both.
They're both, to me, they are the mothers of all TV shows.
Yeah, for sure, for sure.
So what's the takeaway for today, Michelle?
Okay.
Wow.
That was a tangent.
Okay.
These phrases and words all describe extremeness in some way, right?
So, you know, really choose when you're going to use them, right?
If that's what you're trying to express, right?
If you're just saying like, oh, this is a good sandwich, right?
We can teach you other ways too.
You know kind of have variety for saying this is a good sandwich, but that's not what this is about.
This is about saying something that is more intense.
It's the mother of all.
It's not just it's good.
It's the greatest.
Yes.
Yeah, that's a good point, Michelle.
Things that are extreme.
And again, like I said before, Americans love to exaggerate, make something huge.
But that's fun.
That's an art of language, right?
That's the art of language.
You can do that.
So cool.
For sure.
Oh my gosh.
Well, this has been a lot of fun, Lindsay.
Thanks for chatting with me today.
Absolutely, Michelle.
Anytime.
I'll see you back here very soon.
And guys, remember, go and review All Ears English.
Let us know if you're using the iOS app, review the app.
If you're just using your podcast player, then leave us a review and we will do our best to read your name out loud on the show.
All right.
Very cool.
Okay, Michelle, have a good one.
All right.
You too, Lindsay.
Bye.
Talk to you soon.
Bye.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to all ears English.
If you are taking IELTS this year, get your estimated band score with our two minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com slash my score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
