hesternopothia
Feb. 29th, 2012 07:14 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
prettygoodwordhesternopothia (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.
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.
