英语词汇die laughing的起源、历史背景-英语词源词典

die laughing. Shakespeare, in The Taming of the Shrew (ca. 1592), was apparently the originator of this expression, or at least the first to record it: “Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.” Several cases are recorded of people actu- ally dying of laughter while watching a stage comedy. More ironic was the death of the ancient soothsayer Calchas, who died of laughter on learning that he had just outlived the pre- dicted hour of his death. John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) is supposed to have made Gay rich and Rich (the pro- ducer) gay (though not in today’s sexual meaning of the word). Gay’s opera is one of the few plays at which someone literally died laughing. Fifty years after Gay’s death, at an April 1782 performance, a certain Mrs. Fitzherbert broke into laughter at the sight of a male actor dressed as a girl playing the part of Polly. She laughed so loudly all the way through the second act that she had to be ejected from the Drury Lane Theatre. Mrs. Fitzherbert’s laughter never ended, however. Her hysterical laughter lasted all that Wednesday and all of Thursday until she died of laughter early on Friday morning.

词汇	die laughing
词源	die laughing. Shakespeare, in The Taming of the Shrew (ca. 1592), was apparently the originator of this expression, or at least the first to record it: “Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing.” Several cases are recorded of people actu- ally dying of laughter while watching a stage comedy. More ironic was the death of the ancient soothsayer Calchas, who died of laughter on learning that he had just outlived the pre- dicted hour of his death. John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera (1728) is supposed to have made Gay rich and Rich (the pro- ducer) gay (though not in today’s sexual meaning of the word). Gay’s opera is one of the few plays at which someone literally died laughing. Fifty years after Gay’s death, at an April 1782 performance, a certain Mrs. Fitzherbert broke into laughter at the sight of a male actor dressed as a girl playing the part of Polly. She laughed so loudly all the way through the second act that she had to be ejected from the Drury Lane Theatre. Mrs. Fitzherbert’s laughter never ended, however. Her hysterical laughter lasted all that Wednesday and all of Thursday until she died of laughter early on Friday morning.
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