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Asked by popthebottle to Meeks, Pete, Stephen, Steve, Tom on 20 Jun 2010 in Categories: General.
Question: why is one of the bones in the human body called a funny bone but we dont actually get tickled?
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Marieke Navin answered on 18 Jun 2010:
I don’t know why it’s called a funny bone, but you know how you feel if you bang it? you feel so weird…sort of funny but not laughing. I don’t know!
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Stephen Curry answered on 18 Jun 2010:
Ha, ha – what a funny question! Actually I looked this up and one possible answer surprised me. When you get a bang on the elbow sometimes you get a tingling or tickling sensation in your arm. Well, one of the bones connected to the elbow is the humerus (the bone in your arm between shoulder and elbow) – which is called the funny (humorous) bone!
What wags these anatomists are!
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Tom Hartley answered on 20 Jun 2010:
“Funny Bone” is an informal name for a spot on your elbow where the ulnar nerve is near the surface of the skin. It normally carries signals from your upper arm and hand to and from the brain (via the spinal cord). Most large nerves are protected by muscle or buried inside bones, but ulnar nerve isn’t. When you bang your elbow you sometimes get a strange sensation which is much more powerful than you’d expect, a bit tingly – it seems to go “right up your arm”. It is a funny feeling, but not in a good way! I guess that the knock causes some of the neurons to generate false signals all at the same time.
When I was doing my Life Sciences degree I seem to remember we did a practical which involved stimulating our own ulnar nerves electrically, giving a similar sensation and causing the hand to move. I didn’t really enjoy that class, but I haven’t (entirely) forgotten it.
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