A: How did you like my speech? B: Your jokes were perfect tonight. You had them splitting their sides! Note: This idiom means “to laugh uproariously or hysterically.” This hyperbole dates from the 17th century. Thomas Brown used it in “Saints in Uproar” (1687): “You’d break a man’s sides with laughing.” The word “split” came into use somewhat later, as seen in the works of Dickens and Harriet Beecher Stowe. In Chinese, there is a similar saying that “one laughs until their stomach aches.” | 