you crease me up

you make me laugh

TRANSLATION

to crease sb. up = jdn stark zum Lachen bringen —— to crease sth. = etw. knicken; knittern; falten; zerknittern

STATISTICS

IN THE PRESS

“As a child, I would often crease up while watching Mr Bean.”

The Annals of Tisha Plum - Volume 6

Did you
know?

to crease up
phrasal verb - informal

- to laugh a lot, or make someone else laugh a lot

Cambridge Dictionary

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ORIGIN

Presumably anatomical - imagine laughing so much that your upper body completely bends over.


Humour researchers have attempted to classify laughter according to its intensity… starting with the CHUCKLE, the TITTER, and the GIGGLE,… followed by the CHORTLE, the CACKLE, and the BELLY LAUGH, and ending with the SPUTTERING BURST,… at which point the one who laughs would presumably be CREASED UP in complete silence.

—-
According to researcher Robert Provine “Laughter is a mechanism everyone has; it’s part of universal human vocabulary. There are thousands of languages, hundreds of thousands of dialects, but everyone speaks laughter in pretty much the same way.” Babies have the ability to laugh before they ever speak.

Provine argues that laughter probably is genetic. In a study of the “Giggle Twins”, two happy twins who were separated at birth and only reunited 43 years later, “until they met each other, neither of these exceptionally happy ladies had known anyone who laughed as much as they did.”


NO LAUGHING MATTER!

In 1660, Thomas Urquhart, the Scottish aristocrat, polymath, and first translator of François Rabelais’s writings into English, is said to have died laughing upon hearing that Charles II had taken the throne.

Huntington Brown - Rabelais in English Literature


SYNONYMS

crack up, be in hysterics, have a laughing fit be doubled over, fall about laughing, laugh your head off, split your sides, scream with laughter, fall about the place, laugh fit to bust, be in stitches, be convulsed with laughter, be rolling in the aisles, shriek (howl) with laughter


Practice OWAD in an English conversation, say something like:

“Florian’s unexpected wordplays always CREASE ME UP”

 


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Paul Smith

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