Catchy

Someone tried to English-splain the phrase “ear worm” to me the other day.  Apparently it comes from German, and refers to a piece of music that gets stuck in your head, repeating over and over and driving you mad. I thought, but didn’t say (because I’m a coward with no courage of my convictions), that of course I’ve heard the term before, and I’m pretty sure both “ear” and “worm” are English words. Quite discomfited, then, to later discover from Professor Google that it comes from the German word Ohrwurm. It is also known as Involuntary Musical Imagery, which is ironically not a very catchy phrase, and is not to be confused with palinacousis, a type of auditory hallucination caused by damage to the temporal lobe of the brain. So now you know.