PAIN IN THE NECK

PAIN IN THE NECK

We all know what torture it is to be unable to turn your head because of a cold in the muscles of your neck, or because an unexpected twist has made your neck stiff with a kind. Your whole body feels tight. The slightest move makes you jump with pain. Nothing could be worse than a pain in the neck.

That is why we use the phrase to describe some people who give you the same feeling. We have all met such people.

One is the man who always seems to be clapping with his hands-often at the wrong time-during a performance in the theater. He keeps you from hearing the actors.

Even worse are those who can never arrive before the curtain goes up and the play begins.They come hurrying down to your row of seats. You are comfortably settled down, with your hats and heavy coat in your lap. You must stand up to let them pass. You are proud of your self-control after they have settled into their seats... well, what now…Good God, one of them is up again. He forgot to go to the man’s room, and once more you have to stand up, hanging on to your hat and coat, to let him pass. Now, that is “ a pain in

the neck”.

Just as bad is the man who brings his chest problems to a concert and keeps coughing in competition with the musicians.

Another, well-known to us all, is the person sitting behind you in the movies. His mouth is full of popcorn; he is chewing loudly, or talking between bites to friends next to him. None of them remain still. Up and down, back and forth, they go- for another bag of popcorn, or something to drink.

Then, there is the man sitting next to you at a lunch counter smoking a smelly cigar. He wants you to enjoy it too, and blows foul smoke across your food into your mouth.

We must not forget the man who comes into a bus or subway car and sits down next to you,just as close as you will let him. You are reading the newspaper and he leans over and stretches his neck so that he can read the paper with you. He may even turn the paper to the next page before you are ready for it.

We also call such a person a “rubberneck,”always stretching his neck to where it does not belong, like

neighbors who watch all your visitors. We call them both “rubbernecks and snoopers, who enjoys invading your privacy.

Americans, by a long, national tradition, have always had a strong dislike for rubbernecks and snoopers. They quickly rebel against being spied upon. Under a dictatorship, people learn to live with rubbernecks. But it is not acceptable in a democracy. When it comes spying and secret police, Americans are a “stiff necked”people,stubborn as mules. They will “ stick their necks out,” even “ risk their necks” in their opposition to either government or private snoopers. As a result, some at times “ got it in the neck.”They lost their jobs. But opposition to snoopers will never end. Americans feel that it would be better- in the words of the Bible-“to have a millstone hung around your neck and thrown into the sea.