Yanny

That rock you're living under? I know it feels safe, but you need to come out, okay? There are very important sides to choose. But don't worry . . . they're not political.

Of course, I am referring to the latest distraction to capture our fickle attention. Yanny or Laurel, "an optical illusion for your ears."

It was just one week ago yesterday that Katie Hetzel, a high school freshman in Georgia, was studying for her world literature exam. "Laurel" was one of her vocabulary words, so she looked it up on vocabulary.com and played the audio to hear the word. She didn't hear "laurel." She heard "yanny." And the controversy exploded from there. The vocabulary.com recording was actually made by an opera singer, one of the original cast members of the Broadway musical Cats, back in 2007. At this point, it is not a spoiler alert to say that if you hear "laurel," you are correct. And if that makes you feel smug, you might also want to know that the fact that you hear "laurel" might suggest that you've experienced some hearing loss, as your ears are not processing the higher frequency range of sound, something that happens as we age. While 47% of people hear "yanny," and 53% hear "laurel," Team Yanny is made up of mostly younger people.

I feel quite youthful in announcing that I am on Team Yanny. It's nice to know that my ears are young while the rest of my body is aging faster than the latest fad.

You can google the phenomenon to find several scientific explanations for the controversy. Apparently, the acoustic patterns for the utterance are midway between those for the two words. And what you hear depends on what frequency of the signal you attend to. Or maybe the quality of your speakers or the kind of device on which you are listening. I can't wait to find out what I hear when I listen on my transistor radio or my boombox or my hi-fi stereo!

These "this or that" issues are not new to our culture. Sometimes they're just a way to state your beliefs ("redneck or hippie") or your tastes ("Big Mac or Whopper") or your choice of underwear ("briefs or boxers"). When I was in college in Pennsylvania, the question was, "Soda or pop?" If your answer was "pop," you were definitely from the Pittsburgh area.

Many articles that attend to this controversy make reference to 2015's "What color is the dress?" issue. I really don't remember this. While my hearing appears to be good, my memory still sucks. And maybe that's just the beginning of my cognitive decline. You see, there's a new audio out which asks if you hear "brainstorm" or "green needle." (When you "drop a yanny," you are starting a contentious debate on some type of public forum. This is only the beginning.)

I hear "brain needle." I am either losing it completely, or I am the ultimate compromiser.