Who said bees knees

Devastating wildfires breaking The little-known Amur River, the 10th longest in the world, acts as the natural border of Russia and West Moss is an award-winning writer of essays and short stories. Our First Impressions reviewers Book Club Discussion. A deliciously strange and daringly original novel from Pulitzer Prize finalist Margaret Verble. About Discuss. New lines of madras and silk are in gray and tan. Soft cuffs are still the "bee's knees," as they say in New York.

I've also tracked down an earlier reference, in the November-December edition of The National Magazine. It comes from an interview with Ernest Hilliard , who at the time was a 31 year old actor from New York. The film referred to is actually " Annabelle Lee ". For lack of something better, I said to Hilliard, "Well, what do you think of this 'Annabel Lee' picture?

In October , The Postal Record includes the following curiosity. Our long, weary, discouraging fight was won. Justice is to be meted out to a class of employees to whom even common justice has long been a stranger. As Uncle Remus says, "Dat sure am de honey of the bee's knees.

My take on that is that somewhere in the Uncle Remus collection of African-American folklore tales is a suggestion that the best honey comes from a bee's knees, perhaps? However, I haven't been able to find any reference to that in any of the Uncle Remus books yet, although there are plenty of references to honey and bees. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group.

Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Where does the phrase "the bee's knees" originate from? Ask Question. Asked 10 years ago. Active 9 months ago. Viewed k times. Improve this question.

Malady 6 6 silver badges 19 19 bronze badges. Derek Downey Derek Downey 1 1 gold badge 2 2 silver badges 6 6 bronze badges. I was positive this had been asked here before but I can't find it. I thought we had one or the other at least.

Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. I suppose the first question ask of either would be "Do bees have knees? Well, yes they do. Not exactly like your knees though. Bees have six leg sections and each is connected by a joint. These joints aren't usually named but what better name than knee? The joint between the femur and tibia is the most 'knee-like'. Bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacs on their legs. It is tempting to explain 'the bee's knees' as alluding to the concentrated goodness to be found around a bee's knee, but there's no evidence to support this explanation.

It is also sometimes said to be a corruption of 'business', but there's no evidence to support that either. Nor is there any connection with another earlier phrase, 'a bee's knee'. In the 18th century this was used as a synonym for smallness, but has since disappeared from the language:. Townley Ward - Letters , June in N.

Initially, it was just a nonsense expression that denoted something that didn't have any meaningful existence - the kind of thing that a naive apprentice would be sent to the stores to ask for, like a 'sky-hook' or 'striped paint'.

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Save Word. Definition of bee's knees. Synonyms for bee's knees Synonyms beaut , beauty , cat's meow , corker , crackerjack also crackajack , daisy , dandy , dilly , doozy or doozie also doozer , dream , honey , hot stuff , humdinger , hummer , jim-dandy , knockout , lollapalooza , lulu [ slang ], nifty , peach , pip , pippin , ripper , ripsnorter , snorter , sockdolager or sockdologer , standout , sweetheart Visit the Thesaurus for More.

First Known Use of bee's knees , in the meaning defined above.