not your father's

English

Alternative forms

• not your dad's

Etymology

From an advertising slogan for the Oldsmobile car, "this is not your father's Oldsmobile".

Pronunciation

• Audio (AU)

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Phrase

not your father's

1. (idiomatic) Recently changed, made unconventional through modernisation.
   • 2001, Leslie Jaye Goff, Get Your IT Career in Gear!, →ISBN, page 3:

     This is not your father's computer programmer. The days when the typical information technology professional sat in a cubicle all day hunched over a keyboard, a can of Jolt Cola and a half-eaten Twinkie within arm's reach, seem about as quaint now as a genuine whistle-stop political campaign in the mass media age.

   • 2005, Shoeless Wayne Santos, “Final Fantasy XII”, in GameAxis Unwired, page 54:

     Make no mistake about it, this ain't your dad's Final Fantasy. If you want an effiminate spikey haired main character with amnesia or serious social issues that must shoulder the burden of fighting a great and ancient evil, you're not going to find that here.

   • 2011, Peter S. Gaytan, For Service to Your Country: The Essential Guide to Getting the Veterans' Benefits You've Earned, →ISBN, page xv:

     Just as this isn't your father's army — it's also not your father's VA. The bureaucracy is bigger, the forms have multiplied, the benefits have become more complicated.

Usage notes

Being idiomatic the phrase can take a number of forms: mother's and parents' can be substituted for father's, as can regional and dialectal synonyms such as dad and papa.