Serendipity (pronounced ser-uhn-dip-i-tee)
(1) The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by
accident; a combination of events which have come together by chance to make a
surprisingly good or wonderful outcome.
(2) Luck, good fortune.
(3) As the serendipity berry (Dioscoreophyllum volkensii),
a tropical dioecious rainforest vine in the family Menispermaceae, native to tropical
Africa from Sierra Leone east to Eritrea, and south to Angola and Mozambique.
1754: The construct was Serendip + -ity. The proper noun Serendip (Serendib the
alternative form) was an archaic name for the island of Ceylon (सिंहल (siṃhala (Sri Lanka”) after 1972 from
द्वीप (dvīpa) (island)), from the Arabic سَرَنْدِيب (sarandīb),
from the Persian سرندیپ (sarandip), from the Prakrit sīhaladīva
& Sanskrit सिंहलद्वीप (siṃhaladvīpa (literally “island of the Sinhala people”)). The –ity
suffix was from the French -ité, from
the Middle French -ité, from the Old
French –ete & -eteit (-ity), from the Latin -itātem, from -itās, from the primitive Indo-European suffix –it. It was cognate with the
Gothic –iþa (-th), the Old High
German -ida (-th) and the Old English
-þo, -þu & -þ (-th). It was used to
form nouns from adjectives (especially abstract nouns), thus most often
associated with nouns referring to the state, property, or quality of
conforming to the adjective's description.
The serendipity berry is noted as a source of monellin, an intensely sweet protein and if chewed, alters the perception of taste to make tart, acidic or bitter food taste sweet. Pills containing synthesized monellin are sold as “miracle fruit tablets” for this purpose (a lemon eaten after sucking on one of these tablets quite a revelation) and as “miracle fruit”, serendipity and related berries are widely used in African folk medicine although there’s scant evidence for their efficacy as a treatment for the many diseases they’re said to cure. Words with a similar meaning include fluke, happenstance, blessing, break and luck but serendipity carries the particular sense of something very useful and wholly unexpected being the result while The phrases “Murphy's law” & “perfect storm” are close to being antonyms. In science and industry, serendipity has played a part in the discovery or development of vaccination, insulin to treat diabetes, penicillin, quinine, Viagra, x-rays, radioactivity, pulsars, cosmic microwave background radiation, Teflon, vulcanized rubber, microwave ovens, Velcro and 3M's (originally Minnesota Mining & Manufacturing) post-it notes (though it seems its part in the invention of stainless steel may be a myth). Serendipity & serendipitist are nouns, serendipitously is an adverb and serendipitous is an adjective; the noun plural is serendipities. Serendipiter & serendipper are non-standard noun forms adopted in popular culture.
Serendipity was in 1754 coined by the English Whig politician
& author writer Horace Walpole (1717–1797), derived from the fairy tale The
Three Princes of Serendip, the three,
Walpole noted, “always making
discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest
of”. The Three Princes of Serendip was
an English version of Peregrinaggio di
tre giovani figliuoli del re di Serendippo, printed in 1557 by Venetian publisher
Michele Tramezzino (1526-1571), the text said to have been the work of a Cristoforo
Armeno who had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Book
One of Amir Khusrau's Hasht-Bihisht (1302).
The story was translated into French before the first English edition was published
and Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet, 1694–1778) used the tale in his 1797
novella Zadig ou la Destinée (Zadig or The Book of Fate), an intriguing fusion of fiction and philosophy
which influenced systematic science, the evolution of creative writing about crime
and even horror stories.
Walpole used serendipity first in a letter (dated 28
January 1754) he wrote to Florence-based British diplomat Sir Horace Mann
(1706–1786) but which seems not to have been published until 1833, the new word
remaining almost unnoticed until the 1870s when there was a brief spike; it was
in the early-mid twentieth century it became popular and until then it was rare
to find a dictionary entry although the adjective serendipitous appeared as
early as 1914. Walpole was compelled to
coin serendipity to illustrate his delighted surprise at finding a detail in a painting
of Bianca Cappello (1548–1587 and latterly of the clan Medici) by Giorgio
Vasari (1511-1574). The charm of the word is
such that it’s been borrowed, unaltered, by many languages and it frequently appears in "favorite word" or "words of the year" lists.
The twenty-two-year-old Walpole fell under the charm of the long dead Bianca Cappello while staying in Florence during his grand tour of the
continent. Besotted by the portrait of
the peach-skinned Venetian beauty which hung in the Casa Vitelli, it's not
clear what immediately drew his eye but a diary note by the French writer
Montaigne (1533–1592), who in 1580 had the pleasure of meeting her, might provide a hint: “...belle à l’opinion italienne, un visage
agréable et imperieux, le corsage gros, et de tetins à leur fouhait”
("...according to the Italians she is beautiful.
She has an agreeable and imposing face, and large breasts, the way they
like them here…"). He confided his
passion to Mann who around 1753 purchased the work, sending it to his friend
who had by then returned to England, his cover letter including the revelatory “It is an old acquaintance of yours, and once
much admired by you... it is the portrait you so often went to see in Casa
Vitelli of Bianca Capello… to which, as your proxy, I have made love to for a
long while… It has hung in my bedchamber and reproached me indeed of
infidelity, in depriving you of what I originally designed for you”. These days, such things are called objectum sexuality or fictosexualism but in the eighteenth century it was just something
the English aristocracy did.
Whatever other pleasures the oil on canvas bought him, Walpole must also have devoted some attention to detail for he would soon write back to Mann: “I must tell you a critical discovery of mine a propos in a book of Venetian arms. There are two coats of Capello… on one of them is added a fleu de luce on a blue ball, which I am persuaded was given to the family by the Grand Duke” (of Medici who was Bianca's second husband (who may have murdered the first)). Much pleased at having stumbled upon this link between the two families in a book of Venetian heraldry he happened at the time to be reading in the search for suitable emblems with which to adorn the painting's frame, he told his dear friend: “This discovery indeed is almost of that kind which I call SERENDIPITY”.
No comments:
Post a Comment