【推荐1】We all know what it is like to be unable to turn your head because of a cold in the muscles (肌肉) of your neck, or because an unexpected twist (扭曲) has made your neck ache. The slightest move makes you jump with pain. Nothing could be worse than a pain in the neck.

That is why we use the phrase to describe some people who give you the same feeling. We have all met such people.

One is the man who always seems to be clapping his hands—often at the wrong time—during a performance in the theater. He keeps you from hearing the actors.

Even worse are those who can never arrive before the curtain goes up and the play begins. They come hurrying down to your row of seats. You are comfortably settled down, with your hat and heavy coat in your lap. You must stand up to let them pass. You are proud of yourself-control after they have settled into their seats...Well, what now ... God, one of them is up again. He forgot to go to the men 's room, and once more you have to stand up, hanging on to your hat and coat to let him pass. Now, that is "a pain in the neck".

Another, well-known to us all, is the person sitting behind you in the movies. His mouth is full of popcorn (爆米花); he is chewing (嚼) loudly, or talking between bites to friends next to him. None of them remain still. Up and down, back and forth, they go for another bag of popcorn, or something to drink.

Then, there is the man sitting next to you at lunch, smoking. He wants you to enjoy it too, and blows smoke across your food into your mouth.

We must not forget the man who comes into a bus or subway and sits down next to you, just as close as you will let him. You are reading the newspaper and he gets closer so that he can read the paper with you. He may even turn the paper to the next page before you are ready for it.

We also call such a person a "rubber neck", always getting close to where it does not belong, like neighbors who watch all your visitors. They enjoy learning about your personal business. People have a strong dislike for "rubber necks". They hate being watched secretly.

【推荐3】A recent study shows that more than 90% of adults report hearing earworm songs on a weekly basis. They can't walk into their office without Rihanna's voice singing “work, work, work” in their mind. That was commonly known as earworm songs — those sticky tunes that continue to play in their heads.

Luckily, most people report earworm songs as pleasant. But others find them annoying or even maddening. “Some people are troubled by them to the point that it disturbs life,” says Elizabeth Margulis, a professor who has studied earworm songs.

Margulis says earworm songs tend to have some predictable characteristics. For one thing, they tend to be small parts of a song — not the whole track. And “the songs you've heard recently also have the most possibility to get stuck in your memory,” she says.

But sometimes something strange and unpredictable can also start a track playing in your head. “Once I was at the doctor's office and saw a poster of a man who I thought looked like Gaston — a character from Beauty and the Beast,” Margulis recalls. A couple minutes passed, and she realized she couldn't get “Be our Guest”, the song in the movie, out of her head, even though she hadn't thought of the tune in years. In that instance, she was able to identify what touched of her earworm: the Gaston-looking man in the poster. “But the connections can be really unclear,” she says.

Margulis points out that, in all of human history, recorded music is a very new phenomenon. She says some have inferred that earworm songs are also new — the unintended consequence of being able to hear the same song played everywhere in the same way over and over again. So far, the convincing explanation for why human beings experience earworm songs remains a mystery. But there are some well-established ways to cast off the earworm songs.

“Finding a mentally demanding task and putting your mind on it usually shifts attention away from internal music. People tend to get earworms when performing tasks that don't require their full attention — stuff like doing the dishes,” Margulis says.

Chewing gum can also help. When a song is stuck in our heads, it's almost like we're singing along with it. If you make your mouth do something else — chewing gum, eating a meal or talking with a friend — that can kick out the earworm.

You could also face your enemy. By listening to the full track that includes the passage stuck in your head, you may find “closure” and relief.