"Earworm"

[Towse]

On Thu, 3 Mar 2005 20:40:43 -0500, Douglas G. Wilson <douglas at nb.net> wrote:
> >According to Heather Wood and the other fine folks at the Forum for Ballad
> >Scholars (<BALLAD-L at LISTSERV.INDIANA.EDU>), an "earworm" is a nagging tune
> >that is maddeningly difficult to get out of one's mind.  As far as anyone
> >knows, it's a hot new loan-translation of German Ohrwurm, a "haunting melody."
>
> German "Ohrwurm" is basically equivalent to English "earwig", I guess:
> according to legend the bug crawls into one's ear and cannot be removed, I
> think. So it would appear likely that the German word was used figuratively
> for "catchy tune" and then crudely 'translated' into English as "earworm"
> in spite of the existence of the 'proper' translation "earwig" and in spite
> of the existence of another (inappropriate) English word "earworm". However
> it is also possible that the loan went the other way, with English
> "earworm" coined by analogy with "computer worm" (something which sneaks
> into one's computer/software).
>
> I find the figurative "Ohrwurm" (German) at Google Groups from 1991, the

Paul McFedries covered this a while back.

<http://www.wordspy.com/words/earworm.asp>

The earliest citation he has is by Howard Rheingold in "Untranslatable
words," The Whole Earth Review, December 22, 1987