It had my audience on the edge of its seats, lips parted, knuckles whitened.
His knuckles whitening, his arms shaking, Mr. Haig declared to the world, "I am in control here, in the White House".
I'm trying not to cry, as my knuckles whiten on the dashboard of a vintage Ferrari with a windscreen so low it might as well not exist.
Describing the chieftains' reaction to the sacrifice of Iphigenia, the Chorus tells us that "Pity is like a butterfly in a fist as the knuckles whiten".
French and international media had a field day with the Trump-Macron handshake, in which the 39-year-old French leader squeezed his much older US counterpart's hand so hard that Trump's knuckles whitened and he was eventually forced to relinquish his grip.
Including the casual avoiders who may have broken a tooth six months earlier and just keep finding excuses to put off getting it fixed, the figures of those whose knuckles whiten with dental-induced terror shoots up to 45 million Americans, or about 20percentt of the population.
Air pockets open between eyeballs and their lids; neck tendons tighten; gluteal muscles clamp shut; knuckles whiten.
Mr. Hollande's insouciance marked a sharp break with the aggressive and self-promoting style of his predecessor, Nicolas Sarkozy who sometimes gripped the lectern used by French leaders at these events so tightly his knuckles would whiten.
Even today, negotiating the reservation's canyons can be a knuckle-whitening adventure.
At Pau, a circuit more exciting than even Monaco for knuckle-whitening acceleration, Dreyfus in a Delahaye overtook the Mercedes twice to finally humiliate the Nazis hands down.
Much has been spoken and written about Mauresmo's nerves, although in her early days Henin was just as prone to knuckle-whitening bouts of the butterflies.
