How the Earwig Got its Name

You can check out my YouTube video @ https://youtu.be/QQzl7NcLhoo

Also I'm curious where you thought the earwig got its name from before you read or watch the video! Let me know by taking this survey: How the earwig got its name

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You are probably familiar with earwigs; small insects that live in dark, moist places and decompose organic material. You are probably also familiar with the myth that earwigs crawl into your ears and eat your brain or that mother earwigs will lay eggs in your ear so that their babies can eat your brain. Now this story is just that, a story, and it's not too hard to find out their actual ecology and behaviors. However, the more complex and interesting thing about earwigs actually is how this myth got started and how they became known as earwigs. So which came first the myth or the name?

Most people believe that the myth came first and the name came later. Essentially at one point, someone’s friend’s, mother’s, cousin’s, dog walker (or mastodon walker) knew a guy who got that weird bug with the pincers stuck in his ear! This amazing story was told until it the insect was going in ears on purpose, then to eat your ear, then to eat your brain. As the story grew more and more people came forward with more stories fromTheir friend’s, mother’s, cousin’s, dog walker and soon this story became part of the passed down folk knowledge about these insects' ecology and eventually these insects were given the name earwig. With the name wig coming from the fact that earwigs were found in those crazy 17 century powdered wigs people used to wear.

However, many entomologists tell a different story. They claim that earwigs were originally called earwings because the hindwing of earwigs are the shape of a human ear. The name was then either misheard when said by a scientist with an accent or misspelled as a book was being copied down. The misspelled or mispronounced name stuck but didn’t make sense so later people came up with a myth to explain it, perpetuating the wrong name, earwig, even further. This explanation makes a lot of sense as many insects are named after the shapes or textures of their wings, such as scale-wing (Lepidoptera) for butterflies, or shield-wing (Coleoptera) for beetles. Even the name for the earwig order, Dermaptera, means skin-wing based on their reduced leathery front wings.

However these explanations are not correct! …At least there are some major gaps in both. It turns out that both the myth and the name are so entwined and have been around for so long that it is extremely difficult to figure out which came first. In fact, both originated far enough back that just about every Latin based language has a name for earwig that can be translated into ear-something. Like ear-piercer, (French), ear-worm (German), or ear-turner (Russian), and so on. So, let’s leave all the stories and get into the actual science and literature of the name, the myth, and the legend.

Most sources agree that “earwig” comes from the old English ēare wicga, which means “ear wiggler” or “ear insect”. But every source has a different explanation on how the name started. In her paper, ‘Lend me Your Earwigs’, Dr. May Berenbaum helps untangle this mess a little bit, diving deep into the literature behind the earwig name. According to Dr. Berenbaum the oldest mention of the name and the myth appears in the infamous Naturalis Historia by Pliny the Elder. Pliny is notorious for his several “scientific” claims in his book about entomology and really deserves his own future video altogether. Among other things Pliny states that if an ēare wicga infests an ear you should spit in it and the earwig will come out. This is not only the first time the name but also the myth is mentioned in any sort of literature. This idea caught on with later books saying similar things, though some offer alternatives to getting rid of earwigs in your ear such as hemp juice. So, I guess if you're a germaphobe that might be a better solution for you.

So, did Pliny the Elder actually have to remove an earwig from someone’s ear? We don’t know. But it is really unlikely. Many of his other claims in the book are also not correct and to date there has been only 1 case reported in which an earwig was found inside the ear and the report wasn’t well documented with the insect even possibly being misidentified. This lack of earwigs in hearing organs is not due to a lack of insects found in ears. According to several medical reports, cockroaches and beetles are the most common foreign object extracted from the ears of adults! The general lack of earwigs in ears was even pointed out back in the 1700’s by George Lemon, who stated that in his research he couldn’t understand where the name or myth came from, finding no support for earwigs living in ears.

So what about this idea that the earwig name comes from the shape of their wings? Well, while their wings vaguely look like human ears this was not suggested until 1865, several hundred years after Pliny, by Dr. Cowan, who very simply and without any source, said that this must be the origin of the name. To date he was the first person to say this despite several hundred years of earwig literature before his time. It is therefore not very likely that this origin for the name is true, though it is very fun to point this out to people who don't know that earwigs even have wings!

And so it seems that how the earwig got its name is a mystery. We don’t know what inspired Pliny the Elder to write what he did or even where he got the name. But the misconception about these amazing animals persists throughout the world and has been a part of us for so long that it has become part of many languages and even cultures.

Going down a mole cricket hole: I also did a little research into the possibility of earwigs getting their name from being frequently found inside ears of corn. Ear (as in ear of corn) originally meant sharp, and was spelled in old English ear, (instead of ēare that refers to your ear). In addition, ear (as in ear of corn) came into use in old English way later than ēare (your ear) or even ēare wicga (earwig). So, this interpretation still does not account for the earwigs name, though it was a really fun suggestion made to me by someone who reviewed this!

Works Cited

• Berenbaum, M. (2007). Lend me your earwigs. American Entomologist, 53(4), 196-197.

• Lemon, G. W. 1783. English etymology; or, A derivative dictionary of the English language. London: Robinson Lennox Charlotte.

• Skeat, W. W. (2010). An etymological dictionary of the English language. Nabu Press.

• Stewart, Post author. “The Grammarphobia Blog: A Few Kernels of Truth.” Grammarphobia, 9 Apr. 2019, https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2009/10/a-few-kernels-of-truth.html.

• Wikimedia Foundation. (2022, January 3). Earwig. Wikipedia. Retrieved March 10, 2022, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earwig

• Yaroko, A. A., & Irfan, M. (2012). An annual audit of the ear foreign bodies in hospital universiti sains malaysia. Malaysian family physician: the official journal of the Academy of Family Physicians of Malaysia, 7(1), 2.