A Pain in the Neck

“What a pain in the neck.”

That’s a simple declarative statement with little ambiguity. The words “pain,” “in,” and “neck” are all in common usage. They’re not obscure; so, you don’t need specialized training in linguistics to understand the denotation of the language. It means what it says.

As plain as this statement is, by itself it isn’t sufficient to communicate my intent. Taken literally, you might assume I have an ache somewhere in my cervical vertebrae. Maybe it’s a muscle ache, or perhaps I’ve been in a car accident that has caused whiplash.

That’s seems straightforward enough—unless you happen to understand familiar figures of speech employed in the English language. Metaphorically, having “a pain in the neck” connotes annoyance at a nagging problem, not necessarily related to one’s physical neck. “My loud neighbors are a pain in the neck. Computer difficulties are a pain in the neck.”

How can you determine the precise meaning of the phrase? How do you know if my “pain in the neck” is literal or metaphorical? You need more information. You need to know the context.

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