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I have a questing about the (modern) usage of the verb "hurt". I have learned and always understood that if you have incurred an injury or you are in pain, the correct phrase is: "I am hurt". This phrase can also be used in a psychological sense, for example when someone has insulted you.

Nowadays, when I watch American films or programs on the television, I notice that many people say: "I am hurting". I find this surprising and amusing. Because it seems to me that "I am hurting" literally means "I am causing pain", which is obviously not the intended meaning.

I wonder if this is modern (American) usage of the verb "hurt". Is it considered correct? Or is it a slang/street phrase used by lower-educated people, frowned upon by higher-educated people?

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The Guardian {2018; Gbenga Adebambo} has a recent example that I find totally acceptable and not over-informal in register:

I don’t get angry with people that hurt me; I rather pity and empathise with them. The reason being that it takes someone that is hurting inside to actually hurt others.

'Hurt' has been used with both the 'suffer physically or emotionally' as well as 'cause suffering' senses certainly for over a century now:

hurt (verb)

  • c. 1200, "to injure, wound" (the body, feelings, reputation, etc.) ...

  • [I]ntransitive use "feel or experience pain" has been occasional in modern English; current usage dates from c. 1902.

[Online Etymology Dictionary]

'Tell me where it hurts' uses what can perhaps be considered a hybrid usage with non- or quasi-referential 'it'. And 'she's hurting [inside]' (the padding probably makes this more natural-sounding) mimics 'she's suffering'. She is experiencing pain. A verbal rather than adjectival interpretation makes more sense to me; the present participle invokes the ongoing problem, while the past participle ('she's hurt') would call to mind there having been some punctive cause such as getting wounded or lambasted.

The use of the continuous here is becoming more idiomatic with time on both sides of the Atlantic, especially with padding, as these Google 3-grams show:

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Originally, and still mainly an AmE usage:

Hurting:

  1. generally miserable or in trouble.

1957 [US] H. Simmons Corner Boy 124: Specs was hurting, man, was he hurting.

1966 [US] H.S. Thompson Hell’s Angels (1967) 36: I mean the heat was on, man. We were hurtin’. 1970 [US] D. Ponicsan Last Detail 120: ‘Make out pretty well there, do you?’ ‘I ain’t hurtin’.’.

1984 [Can] Totally True Diaries of an Eighties Roller Queen 2 Sept. I don’t want go back to school. It’s going to be hurtin’.

2005 [Ire] P. Howard Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nightdress 24: I know you’re basically hurting, Babes.

(GDoS)

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Merriam-Webster Unabridged flags "I am hurting" as dialectical:

hurt, v.: hurt or dialectal hurt·ed; hurt or dialectal hurted; hurt·ing; hurts

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  • It's flagging the forms hurted (past tense) and hurted (past participle) as dialectical in this quote.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jan 15, 2022 at 17:36

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