This is the last week of the A to Z blogging challenge and the last of the easy letters. The end of the alphabet has the fewest words to play with. Throughout the month of April, I have been using the challenge to modernise the seven deadly sins with my suggested twenty six versions. Humans, it would seem, have an insatiable ability to sin.
W is for earworm. Sometimes it is known as a brain worm. Either way it has a worm in it, a bit like mezcal but that’s really a maggot (Hypopta agavis). Let’s not go there but if you have eaten one, seek help.
Now, I’m getting old. In those quiet moments I find myself humming or whistling a small piece of music, something I’ve heard on the radio perhaps. I read once that older men do this to remind themselves they are still alive. I hum therefore I am. I’m not sure this is true though.
My tunefulness, or rather lack of it drives my wife crazy. ‘Whistle something different’ she shouts at me. ‘It’s always the same tune!’ which of course it is not. My repertoire is quite vast and varied at least in my own mind. But these melodies stick in her mind. They are earworms.
It is a catchy piece of music which somehow gets stuck in your head. You find yourself playing it over and over again when often it is something that you would rather forget, like Agadoo by Black Lace, or something by the Wombles.
Someone I know used to ring up a friend and sing something annoying down the phone, just so he would be stuck with it all day. That is the malicious use of earworms with intent. It may not be a crime but it is certainly a sin.
Thou shalt not sing dubious songs within earshot of other people.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 