earworm

先日NHKハイビジョンの新番組名探偵アマデウスでラベルのボレロを取り上げた番組を見ました。お陰でその日は一日中頭の中でラベルのボレロが何回も演奏されることになりました。こんな状況を表す便利な英語がある事を知りました。
"I couldn't get the song out of my head. It's like a broken record," Clark said Thursday while shopping at the Galleria at Tyler mall in Riverside. "I keep humming it, and you know, I don't even like Prince's music."
Her experience reflects a phenomenon shared by the vast majority of people, according to an ongoing study at the University of Cincinnati. Nearly everybody has been mentally tortured at one point in their lives by an "earworm": a tune that keeps repeating itself over and over in their heads.
The research also indicates that people who get the most earworms tend to listen to music frequently and have neurotic habits, such as biting pencils or tapping fingers.
Dictionary.comにある "earworms" の説明です。
a song or tune that gets stuck in one's mind and repeats as if on a tape; also written ear-worm, ear worm; also called cognitive itch, sticky tune
Example: The song played in the grocery store became an earworm for her.
Etymology: German ohrwurm
元はドイツ語なのですね。