Liliputins-668

An Emperor without a stitch on can keep his countrymen in stitches for a long time ... "
Hans Christian Andersen

Liliputins. What, the heck, is this ?
http://www.stihi.ru/2012/08/18/5368


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Naked, as in They let their baby run around outside without a stitch on. A related phrase is not have a stitch on. These expressions use stitch in the sense of “a piece of clothing,” a usage dating from the early 1800s. 


The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary
Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Cite This Source

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In stitches

Meaning

Laughing uproariously.

Origin

Portrait of William ShakespeareTo be in stitches is to be in such a paroxysm of laughter as to be in physical pain. The allusion implicit in the phrase is to that of a sharp pain - like being pricked with a needle.

The phrase was first used by Shakespeare in Twelfth Night, 1602.


MARIA:
 If you desire the spleen, and will laugh yourself into stitches, follow me. Yond gull Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian, that means to be saved by believing rightly, can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness. He's in yellow stockings.

Despite the usage in Shakespeare, the phrase didn't become established in the language and there are no other records of it until the 20th century. This entry in The Lowell Sun, in July 1914, is the earliest non-Shakesperian record that I can find:


"There's a new face among the members in Ben Loring, a natural-born comedian, who seems to have no difficulty whatever in keeping his audience in stitches of laughter and glee."

See other phrases and sayings from Shakespeare

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keep someone in stitches

Fig. to cause someone to laugh loud and hard, for a period of time. The comedian kept us in stitches for nearly an hour. The teacher kept the class in stitches, but the students didn't learn anything.

See also: keep, stitch

McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs. © 2002 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc

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Top Definition 


 
the emperor has no clothes

Used to express when many people believe something that is not true. Used also to express something as untrue. See also the expression "the Emperor's new clothes".

Based on Sufi wisdom, Hans Christian Andersen tells the tale in his "The Emperor's New Clothes", the story this expression derives from. In it. there existed an emperor who loved wearing fine clothes and spent all of his people's money on them. He had a different set for each hour and was, without doubt, the finest dressed man in the land.

One day, two swindlers claiming to be weavers entered the Emporer's city and proclaimed they were capable of making the finest, lightest, most magnificent cloth the world has ever seen. So extraordinary was this cloth, it was invisible to anyone who was incompetent or stupid.

Hearing of the weaver's amazing "talent", the foolish Emporer thought he could use such cloth to weed out undesirables in his city. He paid the swindlers an enormous sum & they set out to "create" the clothes; knowing they would only need go through the motions.

The Emperor sent several advisors to guage their progress and all the advisors reported the cloth magnificent, not wanting to appear unworthy for seeing nothing at all; the cloth didn't exist!

Finally the clothes were "finished", the swindlers already having counted the gold and jewels they had received. A procession was arranged to show off the Emporer's new clothes and the entire city gathered in the center to view them. Having been "dressed" by the swinglers, who remarked how wonderful he looked, and how light the cloth appeared on him, he appeared before his people.

The people, having heard of the weaver's abilities and the cloth's fictious properties, were amazed and offered thunderous applause to the now beaming Emperor. None of them were willing to admit that they hadn't seen a thing; for if anyone did, then he was either stupid or unfit for the job he held. Never before had the emperor's clothes been such a success.

While expressing admiration at their Emporer's new "invisible" clothes, a small boy cried out... "But the Emperor has no clothes!"

"This entire adventure in Iraq has been based on propaganda and manipulation. Eighty-seven billion dollars is too much to pay for the continuation of a war based on falsehoods. The Emperor has no clothes."
- U.S. Senator Robert C. Byrd in a Senate Hearing speech October, 2003.