serendipity

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American Heritage Dictionary:

ser·en·dip·i·ty

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(sĕr'ən-dĭp'ĭ-tē) pronunciation
n., pl., -ties.
  1. The faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident.
  2. The fact or occurrence of such discoveries.
  3. An instance of making such a discovery.

[From the characters in the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, who made such discoveries, from Persian Sarandīp, Sri Lanka, from Arabic sarandīb.]

serendipitous ser'en·dip'i·tous adj.
serendipitously ser'en·dip'i·tous·ly adv.

WORD HISTORY   We are indebted to the English author Horace Walpole for the word serendipity, which he coined in one of the 3,000 or more letters on which his literary reputation primarily rests. In a letter of January 28, 1754, Walpole says that "this discovery, indeed, is almost of that kind which I call Serendipity, a very expressive word." Walpole formed the word on an old name for Sri Lanka, Serendip. He explained that this name was part of the title of "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-=@ellipsis4=-"


Obscure Words:

serendipity

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[fr. its possession by the heroes of the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip]
the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

Happy finding of an unexpected object or solution while searching for something else.

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n

The act of accidental discovery.

Random House Word Menu:

categories related to 'serendipitous'

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Random House Word Menu by Stephen Glazier
For a list of words related to serendipitous, see:

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The photograph intended was of a Black-crowned Night Heron; the photographer was unaware of the Pileated Woodpecker flashing through until the image was viewed later.

Serendipity means a "happy accident" or "pleasant surprise"; specifically, the accident of finding something good or useful without looking for it. The word has been voted one of the ten English words hardest to translate in June 2004 by a British translation company.[1] However, due to its sociological use, the word has been exported into many other languages.[2] Julius H. Comroe once described serendipity as : to look for a needle in a haystack and get out of it with the farmer's daughter.[3]

Contents

Etymology

The first noted use of "serendipity" in the English language was by Horace Walpole (1717–1797). In a letter to Horace Mann (dated 28 January 1754) he said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip, whose heroes "were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of". The name stems from Serendip, an old name for Sri Lanka (aka Ceylon), from Arabic Sarandib, from Tamil "Seren deevu" or from Sanskrit Suvarnadweepa or golden island (some trace the etymology to Simhaladvipa which literally translates to "Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island"[4]). Christophero Armeno had translated the Persian fairy tale into Italian, adapting Amir Khusrau's Hasht Bihisht[5] of 1302.

Zadig

In chapter three of Voltaire's 1747 novel Zadig there is an adaptation of The Three Princes of Serendip, this time involving, instead of a camel, a horse and a dog, which Zadig was able to describe in great detail from his observations of the tracks on the ground. When he was accused of theft and taken before the judges, Zadig cleared himself by recounting the mental process which had allowed him to describe the two animals he had never seen: "I saw on the sand the tracks of an animal, and I easily judged that they were those of a little dog. Long, shallow furrows imprinted on little rises in the sand between the tracks of the paws informed me that it was a bitch whose dugs were hanging down, and that therefore she had had puppies a few days before."

Zadig's detective work was influential.[6] Cuvier wrote, in 1834, in the context of the new science of paleontology:

"Today, anyone who sees only the print of a cloven hoof might conclude that the animal that had left it behind was a ruminator, and this conclusion is as certain as any in physics and in ethics. This footprint alone, then, provides the observer with information about the teeth, the jawbone, the vertebrae, each leg bone, the thighs, shoulders and pelvis of the animal which had just passed: it is a more certain proof than all Zadig's tracks."[6]

T. H. Huxley, the proponent of Darwin’s theories of evolution, also found Zadig's approach instructive, and wrote an in his 1880 article "The method of Zadig":

"What, in fact, lay at the foundation of all Zadig’s arguments, but the coarse, commonplace assumption, upon which every act of our daily lives is based, that we may conclude from an effect to the pre-existence of a cause competent to produce that effect?"[7]

Edgar Allan Poe may have been inspired by Zadig when he created C. Auguste Dupin in "The Murders in the Rue Morgue", which Poe called a "tale of ratiocination" and which established the modern detective fiction genre.[8] Émile Gaboriau, and Arthur Conan Doyle were perhaps also influenced by Zadig.[6]

Role in science and technology

Various thinkers discuss the role that luck can play in science. One aspect of Walpole's original definition of serendipity, often missed in modern discussions of the word, is the need for an individual to be "sagacious" enough to link together apparently innocuous facts in order to come to a valuable conclusion. Indeed, the scientific method, and the scientists themselves, can be prepared in many other ways to harness luck and make discoveries.

Role in business and strategy

M. E. Graebner describes serendipitous value in the context of the acquisition of a business as "windfalls that were not anticipated by the buyer prior to the deal": i.e., unexpected advantages or benefits incurred due to positive synergy effects of the merger.[citation needed] Ikujiro Nonaka (1991,p. 94 November–December issue of HBR) points out that the serendipitous quality of innovation is highly recognized by managers and links the success of Japanese enterprises to their ability to create knowledge not by processing information but rather by "tapping the tacit and often highly subjective insights, intuitions, and hunches of individual employees and making those insights available for testing and use by the company as a whole".

Serendipity is a key concept in Competitive Intelligence because it is one of the tools for avoiding Blind Spots (see Blindspots analysis)[9]

Uses of serendipity

Serendipity is used as a sociological method in Anselm L. Strauss' and Barney G. Glaser's Grounded Theory, building on ideas by sociologist Robert K. Merton, who in Social Theory and Social Structure (1949) referred to the "serendipity pattern" as the fairly common experience of observing an unanticipated, anomalous and strategic datum which becomes the occasion for developing a new theory or for extending an existing theory. Robert K. Merton also coauthored (with Elinor Barber) The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity[10] which traces the origins and uses of the word "serendipity" since it was coined. The book is "a study in sociological semantics and the sociology of science", as the subtitle of the book declares. It further develops the idea of serendipity as scientific "method" (as juxtaposed with purposeful discovery by experiment or retrospective prophecy).

Related terms

William Boyd coined the term zemblanity to mean somewhat the opposite of serendipity: "making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries occurring by design".[11] A zemblanity is, effectively, an "unpleasant surprise". 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 "The Three Princes of Serendip". It describes the suppression of serendipitous discoveries or research results by powerful individuals.[12]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Words hardest to translate – The list by Today Translations.". Global Oneness. 21 April 2009. http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Words_hardest_to_translate_-_The_list_by_Today_Translations/id/5596801. 
  2. ^ For example: Portuguese serendipicidade or serendipidade; French sérendipicité or sérendipité but also heureux hasard, "fortunate chance"; Italian serendipità (Italian Dictionary Hoepli, cfr.); Dutch serendipiteit; German Serendipität; Japanese serendipiti (セレンディピティ); Swedish, Danish and Norwegian serendipitet; Romanian serendipitate; Spanish serendipia, Polish: Serendypność; Finnish serendipiteetti
  3. ^ Retrospectroscope: Insights into Medical Discovery Von Gehr Publisher. 1977. 182 pp. ISBN 978-0-9601470-1-4. Also cited by Pek Van Andel (unsourced).
  4. ^ "Serendipity". Etymonline.com. http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=serendipity&searchmode=none. Retrieved 1 November 2010. 
  5. ^ See Ben-Amos, Dan; et al. (2006). Folktales of the Jews: Tales from Eastern Europe. Jewish Publication Society. p. 318. ISBN 0-8276-0830-6. , accessible [1]
  6. ^ a b c John, Carlo Ginzburg; translated by; Tedeschi, Anne C. (1992). Clues, myths, and the historical method (Johns Hopkins pbk. ed. ed.). Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. 116. ISBN 978-0-8018-4388-4. 
  7. ^ On the Method of Zadig in Wikisource
  8. ^ Silverman, Kenneth (1992). Edgar A. Poe : mournful and never-ending remembrance (1st Harper Perennial ed. ed.). New York, NY: HarperPerennial. p. 171. ISBN 978-0-06-092331-0. 
  9. ^ Serendipity in Competitive Intelligence by Yves-Michel Marti, Egideria
  10. ^ Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003
  11. ^ Boyd, William. Armadillo, Chapter 12, Knopf, New York, 1998. ISBN 0-375-40223-3
  12. ^ (a) Sommer, Toby J. "'Bahramdipity' and Scientific Research", The Scientist, 1999, 13(3), 13.
    (b) Sommer, Toby J. "Bahramdipity and Nulltiple Scientific Discoveries," Science and Engineering Ethics, 2001, 7(1), 77–104.

References

  • "The view from Serendip", by Arthur C. Clarke, Random House, 1977.
  • "Momentum and Serendipity: how acquired leaders create value in the integration of technology firms", by Melissa E. Graebner, McCombs School of Business, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, U.S.A. 2004.

Further reading

  • Remer, Theodore G., ed. (1965). Serendipity and the Three Princes, from the Peregrinaggio of 1557. Edited, with an Introduction and Notes, by Theodore G. Remer. Preface by W. S. Lewis. University of Oklahoma Press.  LCC 65-10112
  • Merton, Robert K.; Barber, Elinor (2004). The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science. Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-11754-3.  (Manuscript written 1958).
  • Hannan, Patrick J. (2006). Serendipity, Luck and Wisdom in Research. iUniverse. ISBN 0-595-36551-5. 
  • Roberts, Royston M. (1989). Serendipity: Accidental Discoveries in Science. Wiley. ISBN 0-471-60203-5. 
  • Andel, Pek Van (1994). "Anatomy of the unsought finding : serendipity: origin, history, domains, traditions, appearances, patterns and programmability". British Journal for the Philosophy of Science 45 (2): 631–648. DOI:10.1093/bjps/45.2.631. 

External links


Translations:

Serendipity

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Dansk (Danish)
n. - lykketræf, evne til at finde ting ved lykketræf

Nederlands (Dutch)
toeval, toevallige waardevolle ontdekking, gave voor toevallige uitvindingen

Français (French)
n. - don de faire des trouvailles

Deutsch (German)
n. - glücklicher Zufall

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - εύνοια στις τυχαίες ανακαλύψεις

Italiano (Italian)
serendipietà

Português (Portuguese)
n. - faculdade de fazer (f)

Русский (Russian)
интуитивная прозорливость

Español (Spanish)
n. - (buena) suerte para hallar cosas valiosas por casualidad

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - förmåga att av en ren slump göra en upptäckt, att snubbla över lösningen på ett problem

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
意外发现珍宝的本领, 意外财

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 意外發現珍寶的本領, 意外財

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 뜻밖의 발견, 운 좋게 우연히 찾아낸 것, 무엇이든 우연히 잘 찾아내는 능력

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 思いがけない発見, ふとした発見, 運良く発見した能力

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) موهبه أكتشاف ألاشياء ألنفسيه أو ألسارة مصادفه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮התכונה לגלות מקומות חדשים במקרה‬


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Serendipity Singers/Many Sides of the Serendipity Singers (1999 Album by The Serendipity Singers)
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