Your Funny Bone

You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire. (Matthew 5:21-22 ESV). Have you ever wondered why it hurts when you hit your funny bone? The funny thing is, the funny bone isn't a bone at all, but a nerve, and hitting it is anything but funny -- in fact, it's painful. According to the American Association of Orthopedic Surgeons web site, the nerve that is referred to as the funny bone is the ulnar nerve, which extends down the arm, across the elbow, and into the hand. It provides sensation to the little and ring fingers and activates many of the muscles in the hand. "The ulnar nerve happens to be very superficially placed in the back of your elbow," says Ed Toriello, MD, a fellow of the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons. "At this spot, it lies directly under the skin and runs in a hard, bony groove on its way to your hand. " Why is hitting it guaranteed to make you cringe with pain, rather than laugh, as its nickname suggests? "Nerves are very temperamental and sensitive structures," says Toriello, who is an orthopedic surgeon in private practice in New York. "For this reason, nerves generally course deep in muscles, where they are protected from direct contact with the things we bump into during our normal course of living. The ulnar nerve at the elbow is an exception, because it lies in a spot that is very vulnerable and protected only by a thin layer of skin." When you bump the back of your elbow directly over the ulnar nerve, it's caught between what you hit and the bony groove, explains Toriello. A painful electrical impulse is discharged from the nerve, which runs through the arm and into the little and ring fingers. So shouldn't it be called the painful nerve, instead of the funny bone? One theory is that the name funny bone is a pun on the Latin word humerus, which describes the part of the arm between the shoulder and the elbow. Another theory is that the "funny" in funny bone means strange rather than ha-ha. "My suspicion is that the first person who experienced this sensation when he or she struck their elbow did not find it fun, but rather found it an odd sensation since it didn't seem to happen when they bumped other parts of their body," says Toriello. "So I think 'funny' in this context really means 'odd or 'strange.'" The more I thought about that, the more I began to think about the “funny” things that people often say about others. To ridicule another is never justified. Even when it is followed with the excuse of “I was just kidding,” like the funny bone, it’s just not funny! Be careful about your speech, especially toward others. To hurt another with the things we say is always a bad thing!