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

Fri Oct 19 23:31:49 UTC 2018

Here’s further evidence that “bee[‘]s knees” was a more or less established term before it came to be widely used as a superlative.  This is from the Washington (Iowa) Democrat, Aug. 20, 1919 (NewspaperArchive), citing the Grinnell Register:

“The Register doesn’t feel like dignifying this article by putting it in the editorial column, but it wishes to say, for the benefit of local wits, that this office doesn’t do a retail business in oil of bumble feathers, pickled bees knees, left hand monkey wrenches, or frosted rabbit tracks.  The number of kids that have stopped the Register man in the past few days looking for these novelties is becoming somewhat annoying.—Grinnell Register.”

John Baker

From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf Of Jonathan Lighter
Sent: Friday 19 October 2018 4:41 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: Re: the bee's knees (1920)

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<http://Newspaper.com>
> clipping:
>
> https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24670931/bees_knees/<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<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<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/<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/24668442/the_bees_knees/>
> > https://www.newspapers.com/clip/24668460/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<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<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<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
> >
> >
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org<http://www.americandialect.org>
>

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