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Reader question: Please explain “touched a nerve” in this: “There was one speech that Pope Francis gave that really touched a nerve with me.” My comments: It struck a chord, in other words. That one speech particularly touched the speaker, moved him or her, and stirred their emotions. Either the speaker agrees or disagrees (more likely agrees), the Pope’s words roused strong feelings in them. That’s what “touched a nerve” means. Let me explain it literally. If you or someone else accidentally hit your elbow nerve, or biologically speaking the ulnar nerve or commonly known as the funny bone, you feel a sharp shock-like sensation running down your lower arm all the way to the small fingertip. That’s what being hit on a nerve feels like literally. The ulnar nerve, of course, is part of the nervous system that passes on information or in common language sensations from one part of our body to another. The nervous system revolves around the brain, much in the same way our blood vessels centers on the heart. Anyways, the nerves are extremely sensitive – either to pain or other feelings. Hence, if you hit a nerve like the funny bone (other nerves are usually hidden deeper under the skin), we react sharply – with a shudder because the pain is sudden and kind of intense. Metaphorically speaking, if something hit a nerve in us, it stirs up our emotions immediately. It may be something that makes us happy or angry, but the point is that our reaction is certain and immediate because our emotions are stirred up quickly. | 
