nostalgie de la boue

English

Etymology

Borrowed from French nostalgie de la boue (literally “nostalgia for mud”).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˌnoʊstɑlˈʒiː də lɑ ˈbuː/

Noun

nostalgie de la boue (uncountable)

1. A yearning for something base or vile.
   • 1970 June 8, Tom Wolfe, “Radical Chic: That Party at Lenny's”, in New York Magazine‎^[1]:

     Politics, like Rock, Pop and Camp, has its uses; but to put one's whole status on the line for nostalgie de la boue in any of its forms would be unprincipled.

   • 2002, Christopher Hitchens, Why Orwell Matters, New York: Basic Books, →ISBN, page 10:

     The fastidious and solitary public-schoolboy [George Orwell] dosses down with tramps and tarts and forces himself to endure bedbugs and chamberpots and lockups. The extraordinary thing about this nostalgie de la boue is that it is undertaken with a humorous self-consciousness and without a tinge of religious abjection or mortification.

   • 2003 September 28, Vanessa Grigoriadis, “The Edge of Hip: Vice, the Brand”, in The New York Times‎^[2], →ISSN:

     Mr. Smith [Shane Smith] called the appeal of the trailer-park aesthetic purveyed by Vice the latest twist on bohemia's old nostalgie de la boue.

Further reading

• nostalgie de la boue on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
• “nostalgie de la boue”, in Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, 1996–present.