Pain in the [body part]

Question

Just wondered if anyone can identify the origin and approximate date; also, what might have been the original body part of reference.Thanks-Theo

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]Just wondered if anyone can identify the origin and approximate date; also, what might have been the original body part of reference.[/nq]
OED2 dates "pain in the neck" to 1924 and "pain in the ***" to 1934. ProQuest does a little better with "pain in the neck":

The Plunge on Silver Heels.
(Texas Magazine.)
The Washington Post; Oct 8, 1911. p. E3
"Aw, you pikers gimme a pain in the neck."
Last time this came up here, one person suggested "pain in the neck" was a euphemization of "... ***", while another suggested "pain the ***" was a vulgarization of "... neck":
http://groups.google.com/groups?th=f71636fe67290c

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[nq:1]Just wondered if anyone can identify the origin and approximate date; also, what might have been the original body part of reference.[/nq]
If you mean this sense, as described by the OED:
"d. pain in the neck (colloq.) (also simply pain), an annoying or tiresome person or thing; also, in same sense (but vulg.), pain in the ***. Also, to give (someone) a pain (in the neck or ***), to be annoying or tiresome (to someone)."
it is not an old phrase, "pain in the neck" being used earlier than "pain in the *** (***)". The dictionary's earliest citation of the first was from 1924, 1934 for the second. With an unspecified part of the body, 1908.
"1908 R. E. Knowles Web of Time xiv. 144 ?There's naethin? like the guid auld oatmeal.? ?You Scotch folks give me a pain,? broke in David.
1924 Wodehouse Leave it to Psmith ix. 188 He got there first, damnhim! Wouldn't that give you a pain in the neck!
1934 J. O'Hara Appointment in Samarra (U.S. ed., 1953) iv. 119 Yougive me a pain in the ***."
A more colourful version is cited from a book most of us have read, I suspect:
"1951 J. D. Salinger Catcher in Rye iv. 27 He gave out a big yawn while he said that. Which is something that gives me a royal pain in the ***. I mean if someone yawns right while they're asking you to do them a goddam favor."

Charles Riggs
For email, take the air out of aircom
and replace with eir

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Thanks, Ben and Charles. Interestingly, before posting I did a google "advanced" search on the expression in AUE and alt.quotations, and it turned up nil. Maybe it thought the search was a ...
Anyway, I was sure I'd seen older usages than OED's citations, so thanks. In some book I don't recall offhand, a parrot is quoted as invecting "Stop chunnerin', woman! Ye gie me a pain ahint me sporran!" or words to that effect - a nice euphemism.
My guess, FWLIW, is that "neck" came first - as in "tension headache" - and other body parts came later both as vulgarizations and to add colour.

Cheers-
Theo
P.S. - Is there a word, the socioeconomic equivalent of "hangover," to describe the price we pay collectively for the individual profligacies of the past?

Pain in the [body part]

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