Knee-tremblingly

[Dan Goncharoff]

I would define "knee-tremblingly" as "making you go weak in the knees",
especially when used to modify "sexy, beautiful and moving".

I would presume that a message from an institution serving the general
public that refers to knocking or trembling knees is talking about fear or
emotion.

DanG

On Tue, Mar 1, 2011 at 5:14 PM, George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       George Thompson <george.thompson at NYU.EDU>
> Subject:      Knee-tremblingly
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>
> The header to a message from a college theater:
> Coming up: Knee-tremblingly sexy, beautiful and moving. (The Guardian, UK)
> See Australia's CIRCA this weekend only
>
> Jonathon G's Dictionary of Slang has Knee-trembler = copulation performed
> while standing.  (This was my first reaction.)
> OED lacks an entry, but has a quotation under "mogully": 2000    Evening
> Standard (Nexis) 17 Mar. 89   Below you plummets The Wall, a mogully black
> run certain to induce knee-trembling.
> HDAS has no entry.
>
> This is announcing tickets for a troup of acrobats &c who have, it seems, a
> particularly break-neck act.  There is a traditional image of fear inducing
> the legs to weaken so that the knees knock together, as for instance, this
> from Dr. Joyce Brothers: "Whenever surveys are made of what people fear the
> most, it's a sure bet that public speaking will be at or near the top of the
> list. Even the most confident, experienced and high-ranking among us often
> have their knees knocking behind the podium." If you prefer Shakespeare to
> Brothers, there is Hamlet, after he gets the word from the ghost of his
> father:: "Hold, hold, my heart;
> And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,
> But bear me stiffly up."
>
> So, I suppose that the Guardian's idea is, that the sight of the performers
> leaping about will put the audience in fear.  Is the association of
> trembling knees so far better established that only one of a very dirty mind
> would think of fornication?  Or was the Guardian being naughty, since the
> performers are young and attractive, and their show carries an erotic
> charge?
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.  Working on a new edition, though.
>
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