There's a phrase in Thai, ตกใจหมดเลย [tòk-tɕɑi-mòt-lɤːi], which means "to be frightened", as if someone suddenly broke a glass on a floor behind your back.
Literally, it can be translated "dropped-heart-depleted-completely" (don't try Google Translate; it's wrong).
Surprisingly enough, I understood it intuitively because there's a Russian idiom "душа ушла в пятки" ("soul went to {one's} heels").
Both Thai and Russian idioms hold a certain amount of humorous context.
I was trying to translate it to English, but only found "frightened to death" which does not look humorous at all. Is there a better phrase to denote being frightened, with considerations above?
Answer
If you're looking for something humorous, then you'll have to create your own translation, in the spirit of Arthur Waley, the great American translator of poetry from Chinese and Japanese to English. Waley was criticized, unjustly, IMHO, for his brilliant translation of The Tale of Genji by a contemporary translator, Edward Seidensticker, touted as "the best translator of Japanese that has ever lived", but, frankly, I found his "faithful to the original text" translation an utter bore compared with Waley's. Waley was a poet; Seidensticker was a translator. There's a world of difference.
Enough background. I'm suggesting that you create your own phrase. I'm not a poet, but I do have a suggestion. Why not say something on the order of "my heart dropped down my leg and into my shoe, rolled between my toes, then stopped for a full five seconds until I caught my breath again"? You can change things to say what you think will amuse your readers or listeners. Everything else that's been suggested here, including my earlier suggestion of "my heart lept into my mouth", is merely a cliché. Avoid clichés whenever possible.
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