What is the origin of "the bee's knees"?(Phrase origins)
The exact origin of "bee's knees" remains a topic of debate, but there is wide-spread agreement that the phrase first appeared in North America during the 1920s. Some interesting theories are listed below.
- Bees carry pollen back to the hive in sacs on their legs. The allusion is to the concentrated goodness to be found around the bee's knee. (extract from the Phrase Finder).
- The expression was coined in the 1920s by an American cartoonist named Tad Dorgan, who also graced the language with such corny superlatives as "the cat's pajamas" and less durable ones such as the "the flea's eyebrows" and - a real clunker - "the canary's tusks." Dorgan also came up with: "Yes, we have no bananas." I've long been puzzled why, to this day, the bee's knees expression has maintained a certain currency in Britain, something it has not had for decades in the United States. The thought occurs that perhaps, more than half a century on, it's a still lingering cultural artifact from the American occupation of the south of England in the lead-up to D-Day. (extract from the Guardian's Notes and Queries site, article by Dave Todd)
- It's one of a set of nonsense catchphrases that originated in North America in the 1920s, the period of the flappers, nearly all of which compared some thing of excellent quality to a part of an animal. (extract from Michael Quinon's World Wide Words).
- I think the idea is that on a bee, knees are strictly a luxury. The phrase originated in 1920s U.S. slang, which had a whole slue of such phrases: "the eel's ankle", "the flea's eyebrows", "the clam's garter", "the snake's hips", "the elephant's instep", "the kipper's knickers", "the cat's pyjamas", "the canary's tusks", "the sardine's whiskers". The fact that "the bee's knees" rhymes may have assisted its survival. (extract from the aue archives, article by Mark Israel)original article
- The bee's knees is actually a development from something that was originally stated as "The be all and the end all of everything." this being rather long, was shortened to "the B's and E's" which eventually became "the bee's knees" (extract from the Guardian's Notes and Queries site, article by "Ogins")
- My _Dictionary of American Slang_ says "bee's knees" was a fad started c1924. Like some Chinese menus, pick one from column A and one from column B... (extract from the aue archives, article by Robert Keller)original article
- ...[the] _bee's knees_ may be a humorous pronunciation of _business_. I have seen this offered as a genuine derivation and it seems as plausible as the current favourite for _OK_. (from the aue archives, article by S. Z. Hanley)original article
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