But something kind of strange happened

When we came inside for lunch, I accidentally hit my elbow against the table in the Fort's kitchen, and it actually really hurt

Even weirder, I felt pain all the way down my arm to my fingers, even though only my elbow hit the table

Don't worry, Squeaks

I’m totally okay now!

Still, I didn’t hit my elbow against the table that hard against the table

So why did it hurt so much?

And why did I feel a strange tingly pain all the way to my fingers?

I know my fingers didn’t hit the table, just my elbow

Weird, right?

Well, the part of the elbow I hit is called the funny bone

It’s way more sensitive than other parts of your body, so if you accidentally bump it, it can really hurt

But the reason I could feel it all the way in the tips of my fingers is that the funny bone isn’t a bone at all

It’s actually a nerve

A nerve helps information travel between your body and your brain

We have them all throughout our bodies, from our fingers to our toes and everywhere in between

And there's a special name for all these nerves: the nervous system

It helps us do, well, everything

When we touch something with our fingers, we can feel it because the nerves in our fingers are carrying the message all the way from our hand to our brain

The message tells the brain, “Hey, we're touching something right now!”

The nervous system also helps us see, carrying the picture from our eyes to our brain

So, we really need our nervous system, or else different parts of our body wouldn't be able to communicate with our brain

Our brain works with the rest of our body to make sense of the world

And that includes when we feel pain

You might be wondering why we need to feel pain at all

I mean, it really hurts!

But our nervous system is actually helping us!

Say I had some soup that was too hot

If my nervous system didn’t tell my brain “That soup is too hot,” I could burn my mouth by continuing to eat it

But since my nervous system spoke up, I knew to let the soup cool off just a little bit

For most of the body, the nervous system is protected by other parts of the body, like muscles

Basically, it's padded nicely so that if I, say, bump my leg or the side of my arm, it doesn't hurt that much

But on this little part of my elbow, the nerve isn't protected

This nerve has a special name: the ulnar nerve

The ulnar nerve runs from your neck, down your shoulder, all the way to your hand

Then it splits into two branches – one is inside your pinky finger and the other branch is inside your ring finger

When the nerve gets bumped at your elbow, it actually bumps up right against your bone!

That’s why it hurts so much

And you can feel that pain all the way down the rest of your ulnar nerve, to your fingers

But, don't worry, if you do accidentally bump your funny bone, the pain will go away

Although you should always tell a grown-up just in case

So, now you know why bumping your funny bone hurts so much

But that doesn't explain why we call it a “funny bone”!

Getting hurt isn't funny

Well, people have two ideas about where the name came from

The first idea has to do with one of the bones in your arm close to where the nerve is

This bone is called the humerus, and that sounds a lot like humorous, which is another word for funny

The second idea is just that it feels funny when you hit your funny bone – not “ha ha” funny,

but that it's kind of weird, which is another way that people use the word “funny.”

Well, Squeaks, from now on, I'm going to be careful not to hit my elbow

But if I do, at least now I know why it hurts and that the pain will go away soon!

Thanks for joining us

If you want to keep learning about the weird and fascinating ways that our bodies work, and keep discovering stuff about our amazing world, hit the subscribe button,

and we'll see you next time here at the Fort!