Hello,
This week’s word is nostalgia, not because I’m feeling wistful about the past but because I like it as a word and saw it in a book this morning and wondered why it’s so close in spelling to neuralgia – could there be a link?
As with many English words I had to turn to the Greeks for an explanation, but the Swiss had a big hand in it too. Nostos is the Greek for “return home”. I love that they have a word for that as opposed to returning to any other location and it looks a little like the word nest too (nest is an old Norse word meaning “food for a journey”). However with the Odyssey in their literature canon, it’s not surprising they have a word for journeys home.
Algos is the Greek for pain which explains the similarity to neuralgia – nerve pain. Together they give us nostalgia – the pain of homesickness.
But wait, doesn’t nostalgia refer to a wistful longing for times past? Well, no actually it doesn’t. Or at least it didn’t until about the 1920s when its use in French novels helped it gain the more modern meaning.
Nostalgia goes way back in time (sorry, couldn’t resist that pun).
To 1668 in fact when it was coined by Swiss scholar Johannes Hofer to refer to extreme homesickness as a disease. By 1754 it was recognised by French army medics. It was particularly noted in relation to the Swiss (pining for the chocolate perhaps?) and could often prove to be fatal. The playing of the bagpipes could trigger it in Scottish troops.
During the American Civil War it was a major issue for Northern troops who recorded 2588 cases in the first two years of the conflict, 13 of them fatal.
I am grateful that nostalgia is no longer a killer disease but something more gentle. But if you come across a homesick Swiss person I suggest you send them home without delay.
Until next time happy reading, writing, and wordfooling,
Grace
Wordfoolery 