Then the Parson took his breath a bit, rolled the quid of tobacco in his mouth from left to right and from right to left, and as he did so he selected the very broadest, knottiest, and ugliest oaths that he had found in all his fifty years of life at sea and on the border.
"First Fam'lies of the Sierras"
Joaquin Miller
Aimed on the left side his well-handled spear Grasped where the ash was knottiest hewn, and smote, And with no missile wound, the monstrous boar Right in the hairiest hollow of his hide Under the last rib, sheer through bulk and bone, Deep in; and deeply smitten, and to death, The heavy horror with his hanging shafts, Leapt, and fell furiously, and from raging lips Foamed out the latest wrath of all his life.
"A Book of Myths"
Jean Lang
Peter obviously struggled to find words to say what he did mean as he had never struggled over the knottiest of legal points, or the hardest of wrestling matches.
"The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him"
Paul Leicester Ford