Letter: German worm
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Sir: Tony Shelbourne (Letters, 3 June) offers "earworm" as the mot juste for a tune that lodges in the brain, but does not know who first coined it.
Nor do I, but that person presumably spoke German well enough to know the word "Ohrwurm" and English not well enough to know that its proper translation is "earwig". Collins German Dictionary gives "Der Schlager ist ein richtiger Ohrwurm" as "That's a really catchy record".
LES TELFORD
Flitwick,
Bedfordshire
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