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Throw into stitches

Posted by ESC on September 17, 2004

In Reply to: "That is a Stitch!" posted by wizzlewolf on September 16, 2004

: Does anyone know the derivation of the phrase "That is a stitch!". (meaning that is funny)
: To me it is a common phrase. However, someone recently asked me if it is an American midwestern phrase. I don't think so because the research I have found thus far includes many parts of the US. However, I don't know where that expression started.
: Anybody know?

One source said calling somebody "a stitch" dates to the 1980s. But I don't believe that's true. It's got to be older.

This looks to be the source of the expression:

THROW INTO STITCHES -- "Here stabbing became a joking matter. The Old English 'stice,' from the same Teutonic root that gives us 'stick,' meant a prick, stab, or puncture inflicted by a pointed object, especially pain caused by acute spasms of the rib muscles after prolonged or violent exercise such as running. These stitches in the side are more painful but similar to pains from excessive laughter, when one 'laughs so much that it hurts.' Thus and one who told a funny story that convulsed his audience was said to 'throw them into stitches.' Shakespeare seems to have first suggested the expression in 'Twelfth Night' when he wrote, 'If you .will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me,' but when the exact words were coined is unknown. A 'stitch' in sewing comes from the same root word." From Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins by Robert Hendrickson (Facts on File, New York, 1997).

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