The Funny Bone
Is there perhaps another Funny Bone in the knee too? |
This is another example of the "lost-in-translation" case, one we can find only in English and that refers to the famous (for English speakers at least) Funny Bone.
Located in the elbow (as seen in the illustration), there is really nothing funny about the Funny Bone. If you accidentally hit it the result will be anything but funny since there is a nerve that runs in that part of the body and is also connected to your neck. The result: brief but intense pain; definitely not funny.
One misconception about the bone is what really is. The Funny Bone is not the elbow but only part of it. The elbow is the joint of a lot of tissues, nerves and essentially the radius and the ulna (which form the forearm) and the HUMERUS (which holds the upper arm) but the pain produced when you whack it is due to the presence of the nerve mentioned above called Ulnar Nerve. The Funny Bone is then not a bone, it is a nerve! So it begs the question: why the name? why is the Funny Bone called that way?
It is all about the name of one of the bones coming together to form the elbow: the HUMERUS. When pronounced sounds quite similar to the word HUMOROUS, hence the pun.
The HUMERUS is called HUMERO in Spanish and the pronunciation is not similar enough to HUMORISTICO so as to establish the same relation. For Spanish speakers there is no such thing as a HUESO GRACIOSO or HUESO DIVERTIDO so the sense of this joke escapes us, unless of course we also know English.
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