"Yo mama" joke

A "yo mama" joke in William Shakespeare's Timon of Athens, detail from the First Folio.

A "yo mama" joke is a form of humor involving a verbal disparaging of one's mother. Used as an insult, "your mother..." preys on widespread sentiments of parental respect. Suggestions of promiscuity and obesity are common,[1] but the form's limit is human ingenuity. Compared to other types of insults, "your mother" insults are especially likely to incite violence.[2] Slang variants such as "ur mum" are sometimes used, depending on speaker. Insults involving "your mother" are commonly used when playing the Dozens. In non-American areas, the association can be with juvenile culture generally.

Although the phrase has a long history of including a description portion, such as the old "your mother wears combat boots", the phrase "yo mama" by itself, without any qualifiers, has become commonly used as an all-purpose insult[3] or an expression of defiance.

  1. ^ Millicent R. Ayoub and Sephen A. Barnett (October–December 1965). "Ritualized Verbal Insult in White High School Culture". The Journal of American Folklore. 78 (310). American Folklore Society: 337–344. doi:10.2307/538441. JSTOR 538441.
  2. ^ Jeffries, Stuart (2006-06-12). "The mother of all insults". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 2006-12-06.
  3. ^ Andrew Conway (1994). "You're ugly, your dick is small and everybody's afraid to fuck your mother! The Stand Up Comedian's Response to the Heckler". Maledicta. 11: 34–46. Retrieved 2007-11-18.