General Question

muhammajelly's avatar

In search of a certain Vocabulary word.

Asked by muhammajelly (562points) February 14th, 2013

I am looking for a word which is similar to nostalgic but with a different notion about the source of affinity. With nostalgia the affinity exists because of association with a prior “personally happy period or place”. Instead the word I am looking for shows an affinity due to a prior functionality.

Note: I would also be happy with an antonym for the word I am searching for. For instance when I take a crap in a toilet that won’t go down with a single flush and then attempt to wash my hands in an 0.4 GPM sink with water that only gets luke-warm and there is no towel to dry my hands I am not nostalgic for the old functionality but have contempt for the “new and improved”.

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18 Answers

Response moderated (Unhelpful)
KNOWITALL's avatar

Buyer’s remorse? Regret?

pleiades's avatar

I got you @muhamajelly it’s “Collective Unconscious”

muhammajelly's avatar

@KNOWITALL “Buyer’s remorse? Regret?” <—Great answer but these imply I made the decision. I never voted for that crap.

Response moderated (Off-Topic)
KNOWITALL's avatar

@muhammajelly I’m normally really good at this stuff, but can you use it in a sentence leaving the __________ where needed? I think the ‘crap in a toilet’ is throwing me off…lol

muhammajelly's avatar

@thorninmud Technostalgia – Nostalgia for older forms of technology that are perceived as simpler to use or as having better quality than current technology. <—you win. @KNOWITALL we still have room for an answer which shows contempt or the so-called-improvements which are actually regressions. Technostalgia shows love but sometimes you need to project HATE.

KNOWITALL's avatar

Anti-technostalgia is the only thing I can find.

CWOTUS's avatar

Nostalgia certainly has enough scope in its definition to include “a longing for a time when things worked better”, but I sure do love “technostalgia”. In fact, I’ve just added it to my dictionary. It’s a word that’ll get a lot of use around this place, to be sure.

Many, many thanks for the word, of course, but mostly for that link, @thorninmud.

Unbroken's avatar

Only thing that popped into my head was luddite. But not really applicable in this situation.

zenvelo's avatar

In the bicycling world the term is “retro-grouch”, first applied to a gentleman named Grant Peterson, who was head of a bicycle manufacturing team at Bridgestone in the late 1980s, His philosophy had to do with steel frame bikes, leather seats, and tried and true components.

Bicycling Magazine did an interview/profile in the late 80s in which Grant was called “the retro-grouch” because of his antipathy to lightweight uincomfortable bikes.

YARNLADY's avatar

sentimentalism

ETpro's avatar

There’s an aphorism for the newfangled crap that’s inferior to the tried-and-true old stuff it seeks to replace. It’s called bleeding edge as opposed to leading edge. Aside from disgust, I don’t know of a word describing our feelings when we cut ourselves on the bleeding edge.

PeppermintBiscuit's avatar

The only word I could come up with for you is “pining”. You are pining for something, that is, longing for it, but the word does not imply why. With “nostalgia”, there is the implication that it is something you previously had, and lost.
I hope that helps.

Unbroken's avatar

Yearn for bygone days?

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