2012-02-29

prettygoodword: text: words are sexy (Default)
2012-02-29 07:14 am

hesternopothia

hesternopothia (heh-ster-noh-POTH-ee-ah, at a guess) - n., a pathological yearning for the good old days.


Or as Peter Bowler puts it in the Superior Person's Book of Words, "You know -- when World War II was in full swing, your children got diphtheria, and dentists used slow drills and no anaesthetic." This appears to be a jocular 19th-century American mock-Latin coinage, but I cannot confirm the date -- the roots are Latin hesternus, yesterday + pother, mental tumult.

---L.