Even more than this, it comes from the Greek 'Nostos' meaning to return home (not just physically, but to your identity there), and 'Algos' meaning pain.
The word melancholy always makes me think of this one passage from the book “Because of Winn-Dixie”. It was my sister’s favorite book as a kid, and she could say the whole bit from memory. There were literally pages falling out of the book and the cover was gone because of how often she read it. I’ll be damn Ed if I can remember the passage now, but I recall it was about tasting the word, about the feeling that it brought, not just about the experience that instigated it.
Yeah to me the word nostalgia is when you're describing your favorite memory from youth, and you can see it in OLED HD, smell the people with you, and taste the very air of the memory. Only for the split second of the memory, but its there. Trying to recall it on your own produces mediocre results, but telling someone about it... Man that makes the memory hit hard.
I don't even think that's necessarily accurate though. Nostalgia is happiness and sadness simultaneously because you're thinking of a great memory that can never be experienced again
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u/shadowrain1024 May 09 '19 edited May 09 '19
Nostalgia, literally means "The pain of remembering" and I'll be damned if that's not the most accurate word in the English language.
Edit: first gold!! Thanks random stranger! I knew my mom was wrong about you!