the origins of serendipity
I've just found (courtesy of wiki) that the word serendipity comes from Serendip, the old Persian name for Sri Lanka. I looked it up because I'm never quite sure how to use it. I like talking about synchronicity too, which seems just another word for what I like to think of as the Universe conspiring with you when you start focusing on something... creating a momentum, that possibly means you are on the right track.
Anyway: Serendip derives from an old Sanskrit name Swarnadweep (Swarna meaning golden and Dweep meaning island) How did we get it? Well, Horace Walpole in 1754 wrote a letter to his friend, saying:
"It was once when I read a silly fairy tale, called The Three Princes of Serendip: as their highnesses traveled, they were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of: for instance, one of them discovered that a camel blind of the right eye had traveled the same road lately, because the grass was eaten only on the left side, where it was worse than on the right—now do you understand serendipity? One of the most remarkable instances of this accidental sagacity (for you must observe that no discovery of a thing you are looking for, comes under this description) was of my Lord Shaftsbury, who happening to dine at Lord Chancellor Clarendon's, found out the marriage of the Duke of York and Mrs. Hyde, by the respect with which her mother treated her at table."
Other words to take note of:
zemblanity , coined by wonderful author William Boyd (Read "Any Human Heart") to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design". It derives from Novaya Zemlya (or Nova Zembla), a cold, barren land with many features opposite to the lush Sri Lanka (Serendip). On this island Willem Barents and his crew were stranded while searching for a new route to the east.
Bahramdipity is derived directly from Bahram Gur as characterized in the "Three Princes of Serendip". It describes the suppression of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals.

