[Occasionally when I’m researching Serious Subjects For Important Projects, I stumble across Fascinating Other Things To Know. The following, my gentle readers, is a non-serious thing that I have learned & will now share with you.]
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{ Source: The Bee’s Knees Cocktail }
SO LET’S SAY THAT I’m a flapper, which isn’t that big of a stretch because if this was the 1920s you know that I’d be one.
Free spirit. Flapper. Very similar.
And let’s say that I wanted to tell you that someone or something was OUTSTANDING – ADMIRABLE – COOL. Then there’s a good chance that I’d say that he or she or it was the BEE’S KNEES.
Unless, of course, I was using other slang from that era. In which case I’d probably say that he or she or it was the:
- cat’s meow,
- monkey’s eyebrows,
- skeeter’s elbow,
- cat’s pajamas, OR
- eel’s ankles.
HOWEVER BEING THAT I AM Thoroughly Modern Ally I think that I’d go with bee’s knees because it sounds cute to say and because there’s an actual logic behind the saying.
You know how I am about lurving the logic.
So to wit, and in conclusion of, what has turned out to be a rather lengthy post about an antiquated, but memorable, slang phrase, I give you this bit of information [from an unexpected source]:
“‘The Bee’s Knees’ is a term indicating excellence – the highest quality. Because 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.”
THE SPECTACLED BEAN 