360: nostalgia and regret Dec 3, 2015

With regard to memory, nostalgia and regret are two sides of the same proverbial coin. 'Nostalgia' came to English in the late 18th century meaning ‘acute homesickness’, from the Greek 'nostos' meaning ‘return home’ (a trope anyone who has read The Odyssey will know) and 'algos' meaning ‘pain’. 'Regret', meanwhile comes from from Old French meaning ‘bewail (the dead),’ perhaps from the Germanic base of greet which is partly from the Old English 'grētan' which means ‘cry out, rage,’ and partly from 'grēotan' which means ‘lament’.