Ghosts That Haunt Us, Ghost Stories That Make Us Whole

The idea of ghosts may give us goosebumps. “Ghosts” are spirits. The etymological derivation is interesting: Ghost < Old English gast, breath, and < proto West Germanic, gaistaz; source also of Old Saxon gest, Old Frisian jest, Middle Dutch gheest, Dutch geest, German Geist “spirit, ghost.” This is conjectured to be from a PIE root gheis-, used in forming words involving the notions…