[Ads-l] the bee's knees (1920)

Fri Oct 19 20:47:01 UTC 2018

Ammon Shea shared a 1918 example on Twitter:

---
https://twitter.com/ammonshea/status/1053384120880033792
1918, 1 Jan., Uncle Sam
Lieut. McNamara is the bee's knees when it comes to drilling. 1-2-3-4, hep,
hep, tell the sergeant to get in step. What he don't know about drilling
isn't worth knowing.
---

On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 4:41 PM Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Chronicling America turns up numerous references to "bee's knees" (but not
> "*the* bee's knees") as far back as 1902, usually as a supposed gourmet
> dish - "bee's knees and petunia sauce" shows up early and more than once.
> Here's a late example that shows "bee's knees" were still a matter of
> culinary interest 14 years later:
>
> 1916 South Bend News-Times (Aug. 2) 4: Strawberry sandwiches, peanut
> cookies, toasted marshmallows, and other airy-fairy dishes which suggest
> the "bee's knees and gnat's knuckles" of burlesque stage memory.
>
> JL
>
> On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 4:09 PM Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Peter! That one had eluded my searches. Here's the Newspaper.com
> > clipping:
> >
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24670931/bees_knees/
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Oct 19, 2018 at 3:42 PM Peter Reitan <pjreitan at hotmail.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > > "Bees knees" superlative US 1919.  In a golfing anecdote about the most
> > > amazing wind-affected shot ever:
> > >
> > > Sioux City Journal, July 17, 1919, page 12.
> > >
> > > [Begin excerpt] "But that was not the worst one.  Another time I saw a
> > man
> > > taking his approach shot, and he made a good one, but as Col. Bogey is
> my
> > > judge, the wind caught that ball and carried it all the way back to the
> > tee
> > > from which he started."
> > >
> > > As Eddie Styles would say, that one was the bees' knees.
> > > [End excerpt]
> > >
> > > Eddie Styles was a well-known golfer at the time.
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > ________________________________
> > > From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of
> Ben
> > > Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Sent: Friday, October 19, 2018 12:22 PM
> > > To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> > > Subject: the bee's knees (1920)
> > >
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > > -----------------------
> > > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > > Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> > > Subject:      the bee's knees (1920)
> > >
> > >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > >
> > > HDAS and OED have "the bee's knees" in the sense of "a superlative
> > > person/thing" from 1923. GDoS has it from 1922 (except for one
> > questionable
> > > outlier -- see below), and Hugo gives some additional cites from that
> > year
> > > in this English Stack Exchange thread:
> > >
> > >
> > >
> >
> https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/47088/where-does-the-phrase-the-bees-knees-originate-from
> > >
> > > In that same thread, Phil M. Jones cites an example from 1920:
> > >
> > > ---
> > > The National, Nov.-Dec. 1920, p. 358, col. 3
> > > "How Movie Dope is Written," by Stewart Arnold Wright
> > > For lack of something better, I said to [Ernest] Hilliard, "Well, what
> do
> > > you think of this 'Annabel Lee' picture?"
> > > "It's the bee's knees," he replied. "If it doesn't knock Broadway on
> its
> > > ear, I'll kiss your Adam's apple in Wanamaker's display window at 12
> > > o'clock noon."
> > > https://books.google.com/books?id=ytVOAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA358
> > > ---
> > >
> > > Here it is earlier in 1920, quoting a delegate to the Democratic
> National
> > > Convention in San Francisco:
> > >
> > > ---
> > > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24666781/bees_knees/
> > > San Francisco Examiner, July 5, 1920, p. 2, col. 6
> > > First Delegate: "Well, now ain't that the bee's knees! Why, I'm having
> a
> > > swell time here, Swell. This is a great town."
> > > ---
> > >
> > > Even earlier that year, in the Feb. 8, 1920 issue of the St. Louis
> > > Post-Dispatch, there are references to a vaudeville show called "The
> > Bee's
> > > Knees" (presented by Joe Laurie, Jr.), but there's no indication of
> > whether
> > > the show used it in the superlative sense or for some other fanciful
> > > purpose.
> > >
> > > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24668442/the_bees_knees/
> > > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24668460/the_bees_knees/
> > >
> > > I don't see anything clearly related to the superlative sense before
> > that,
> > > though "bee's knees" did appear in various contexts as a kind of
> nonsense
> > > phrase, as noted by Hugo on English Stack Exchange as well as by The
> > Phrase
> > > Finder:
> > >
> > > https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/the-bees-knees.html
> > >
> > > GDoS has a dubious cite dated to 1905 in a letter by the Australian
> folk
> > > singer Duke Tritton:
> > >
> > > ---
> > > 1905 Duke Tritton's Letter n.p.: I'm teaching Mary and all the Tin Lids
> > in
> > > the district to Dark An' Dim, and they reckon I'm the bees knees, ants
> > > pants and nits tits all rolled into one.
> > > ---
> > >
> > > The full text of the rhyming-slang-stuffed letter can be found here:
> > >
> > > https://www.tsukuba-g.ac.jp/library/kiyou/98/12.yokose.pdf
> > >
> > > On Twitter, Jonathon Green says that further research has dated the
> > letter
> > > to "somewhere in the teens":
> > >
> > > https://twitter.com/MisterSlang/status/1053315085228224513
> > >
> > > But even that would be an outlier given that there's no US evidence
> > before
> > > 1920 (and there's no evidence that the superlative meaning of the
> phrase
> > > came from Australia). So either it's a case of independent invention,
> or
> > > Duke Tritton's letter was actually written later, in the '20s.
> > >
> > > --bgz
> > >
> > >

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