‘Stab me vitals’

 

‘Stab me vitals’

 It wasn’t really a case of being stabbed, more skewered, as I attempted to remove Jellicoe from my lap and he attempted to prevent me doing so. He’s a gentle cat, not given to scratching or biting humans, but he was trying to hang on to his comfortable place and accidentally hooked my finger with his claw. It was just one claw and just one finger but it hurt like billy-oh and bled freely. Two days later it’s still sore and causes me to wince if I forget and grab something with the hand to which it is attached.

‘Stab me vitals’ came into my head quite by chance and though my fingers are important to me, they could hardly be described as ‘vitals’. Vitals are the main organs of the body, or so I believe. It would take a very long, very strong claw to reach them.

Apparently, the original expression was ‘Stap my vitals’, meaning ‘Stop my vitals’. I gather it was an affectation of Lord Foppington in the play ‘The Relapse’ to substitute ‘a’ for ‘o’ (thanks to David McKie for that information)

It reminds me of how people used to pronounce ‘hat’ as ‘het’ and ‘impact’ as ‘impect’.

 ‘Thenks for the mammary, but I’ve rather gorn orf topic nyee.’