0

She says that her eye hurts her.

My eye hurts me.

Does it make sense? Is it natural to your ears?

ColleenV
  • 11,971
  • 13
  • 47
  • 85
JJ12345
  • 917
  • 3
  • 14
  • 32
  • 1
    We'd usually just say, "My eye hurts." Saying "My eye hurts me" is like my eye is separate from me and does something bad to me repeatedly. As if my eye were secretly beating me up at night while I slept. – Teacher KSHuang May 09 '17 at 08:48
  • 1
    @TeacherKSHuang BTW-question; Consider the following context. Consider a woman who was watching a horrific or very severe event. Then she says my eye hurts me. – Cardinal May 09 '17 at 08:58
  • 1
    To the OP: For Cardinal's example, I would probably say, "That hurt (past tense) my eyes." Or if we want to be more dramatic, we could just say: "My eyes. They HURT." What do you think, @Cardinal? – Teacher KSHuang May 09 '17 at 09:06
  • 2
    @Cardinal Nice comment, it shows how context is everything and OPs must be encouraged to give context whenever they ask a question! – None May 09 '17 at 09:06
  • 1
    @TeacherKSHuang: Completely agree with you, with one minor exception. E.g. If I had a sharp protrusion on my elbow, which I often jam into my chest, it would be correct to say "my elbow hurts me (or my chest)", because it is not the elbow that experiences pain, but it is what causes the pain. – Flater May 09 '17 at 12:46
  • Another angle to this is the necessity of "me". Your eye can't cause pain in someone else. – fixer1234 May 09 '17 at 20:36
  • To the OP: I agree with and have upvoted Flater's comment. So I guess the bigger question is: In your question, are we imagining a situation in which your eye is separate from your body and it is hitting you :D? Probably not, but that's what you mean, right, @Flater :D? – Teacher KSHuang May 10 '17 at 10:06
  • 1
    @TeacherKSHuang: It can still be part of your body. The difference is rather that "my eye hurts" means that your eye is experiencing pain, whereas "my eye hurts [thing]" means that the eye is the cause of the pain, and you experience this pain in [thing]. E.g. if your eyes are like sandpaper, it would be correct to say "my eyes hurt my eyelids" – Flater May 10 '17 at 10:18
  • A related question that I think should be linked to this one: Is it correct to say “I hurt”? – ColleenV May 10 '17 at 10:57

1 Answers1

4

TL;DR
when you say My eye hurts me, what you are telling me is that you (not your eye) are hurting, and your eye is the cause of this pain.
There is a notable difference with My eye hurts, and it's important to use the correct one in order to communicate clearly and unambiguously.

Answering because the comments are basically already answering your question. Let's look at two different examples:

  • My eye hurts.

What you are telling me is that you are experiencing pain in your eye. You are not mentioning what the cause of the pain is.

  • My eye hurts my eyelid.

What you are telling me is that you are experiencing pain in your eyelid. You are also stating that your eye is the cause of the pain.
This does not automatically also mean that your eye itself hurts. You are only stating that your eyelid hurts. Although it is possible that both your eye and eyelid are hurting, within the scope of this sentence you are only talking about the pain in your eyelid.

So when you say My eye hurts me, what you are telling me is that you (not your eye) are hurting, and your eye is the cause of this pain.

When you describe it like that, it almost sounds like it is correct (but contrived) English; but this is not the case. There is a notable difference between the two, and it's important to use the correct one in order to communicate clearly and unambiguously.

Flater
  • 1,799
  • 10
  • 11
  • 1
    I upvoted this answer, but I feel like the answer might be a little hard-to-find for a person who doesn't know what to look for. I'd like to move the last two paragraphs up to the top if that's OK with you. – Teacher KSHuang May 10 '17 at 10:31
  • 1
    @TeacherKSHuang: You should be able to suggest edits :) But I already added a TL;DR at the top for clarity. – Flater May 10 '17 at 11:02
  • For some reason, I feel like the last few edits to answers I've made have bypassed the approval process and I hadn't wanted to make an edit in this case without your approval as I feel like it's a "major" edit. But if edits to answers do go through the approval process, too, then I shall do them myself in the future. Thanks! – Teacher KSHuang May 10 '17 at 11:23