'Serendipity' was the word of the year in 1981

[Ladyazh]

Hi,
may I ask your help on using one word 'serendipity' in a sentence that actually make sense and easy to understand?

Unlike these I am trying to read and my brain hurts:

Still, I was more subject to serendipity than I yet knew. Soon risk, chance, and a letter from Sir Alun Reese-Jones, the Master of Trinity, my college at Cambridge, were to set my life on an adventurous course.
-- David Freeman, One of Us

Yet even as I planned a rough route, leaving plenty of room for serendipity, I was uncomfortably aware that journeys have a way of creating their own momentum.
-- Lesley Hazleton, Driving To Detroit

There again, perhaps because of serendipity, or an especially conscientious team of doctors, it can also happen that the crucial clues are noticed and recorded for posterity.
-- Edward Hooper, The River

 

[CajunCenturion]

Serendipity can mean or an unexpected good fortune, or simply good luck.

It was more serendipity than skill behind winning that game.

Coming across that ten dollar bill in the street was pure serendipity.

The above three sentences may be easier to understand as
Still, I was more subject to some unexpected good fortune (serendipity) than I yet knew. Soon risk, chance, and a letter from Sir Alun Reese-Jones, the Master of Trinity, my college at Cambridge, were to set my life on an adventurous course.

Yet even as I planned a rough route, leaving plenty of room for some unexpected and unscheduled good things to see and do on the side (serendipity), I was uncomfortably aware that journeys have a way of creating their own momentum.

There again, perhaps because of just plain good luck (serendipity), or an especially conscientious team of doctors, it can also happen that the crucial clues are noticed and recorded for posterity.

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[Ladyazh]

Well, I have too much to learn. Thanks for the explanation,
CajunCenturion. I do not think I will be using this word in my daily conversations

 

[SantaMufasa]

Ladyazh, don't rule out using the word...You never know when some serendipitous opportunity might arise to get some linguistic mileage out of it.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[mjldba]

You might also rent "Serendipity", a romantic comedy starring Kate Beckinsale and John Cusack, for further understanding but it won't help you include it in your daily vocabulary.

 

[Lunatic]

hehehehe... Santa I was just going to suggest that Ladyazh look at serendipitous. Although I wonder if they are technically the same word... M-W.com has a seperate listing for each, rather than one listing that includes variants of it.

m-w.com lists the definition as:

the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for

I most often hear 'serendipity' used as a noun in a variation of the following:

"Finding my baseball cards in the attic was a moment of pure serendipity."

 

[SantaMufasa]

'Serendipity' was the word of the year in 1981

Frankly, 'serendipity' was pretty popular in the 1960's when I was a kid, long before many of our MAI-ers were born: (From the Serendipity Singers website):

The Serendipity Singers hit the charts briefly in the mid-60's and made their contribution to music through folk, pop and even some show tunes.

The group was formed at the University of Colorado by students Bryan Sennet, Mike Brovsky and Brooks Hatch. They assembled a group that comprised nine members including vocalists Lynne Weintraub, Diane Decker and Tommy Tieman, guitarists John Madden and Jon Arbenz and bass player Bob Young. The group began to perform on college campuses, mostly in the Western United States.

The Serendipity Singers became more noticeable following a performance at the Bitter End in New York's Greenwich Village. They appeared on the scene shortly after groups such as Peter, Paul and Mary and the New Chisty Minstrels had helped to make folk music popular. The Serendipity Singers projected a squeaky clean image. In the Spring of 1964 their song Don't Let The Rain Come Down (Crooked Little Man) was a top ten hit. They appeared on the popular television show Hootenanny. The group followed with their final top forty song, Beans In My Ears, later in 1964.

Bob Dylan took folk music electric and the British Invasion began, and the type of music with which the Serendipity Singers were associated went out of style. The group continued to record albums and perform live and occasionally on television. Following a number of personnel changes they were still going into the 1990's.

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[CajunCenturion]

==> Although I wonder if they are technically the same word

Serendipity is the noun.
Serendipitous is the adjective
Serendipitously is the adverb.



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As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[sleipnir214]

Out of monkey curiosity, according to whom was the word of the year in 1981 "serendipity"?



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[SilentAiche]

I couldn't even find "serendipity" in my 1964 Websters. Just my luck...

That said, I always thought the simplest definition of serendipity was "finding one thing while looking for another." This is much different from simple good luck.

Example: An abandoned child seeking its mom finds four previously unknown siblings instead. That's serendipity.

A child, abandoned or otherwise, finds a ten dollar bill. That's just luck.

Having expended my two cents, someone owes me $9.98...

Tim

[blue]_______________________________________________________
"As a former farmer, I try to grow the best formers around."[/blue]

 

[AnotherHiggins]

I'm with (H).

I was thinking about this when I read Lunatic's example sentence, "Finding my baseball cards in the attic was a moment of pure serendipity."

The way I think of it (and I suppose I could be wrong - it has happened before), finding the baseball cards in the attic wouldn't be serendipity unless you went up there looking for something else like the Christmas decorations.

[tt]_____
[blue]-John[/blue][/tt]
[tab][red]The plural of anecdote is not data[/red]

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[CajunCenturion]

Yes, there is an unexpected aspect to serendipity.

--------------
Good Luck
To get the most from your Tek-Tips experience, please read FAQ181-2886
As a circle of light increases so does the circumference of darkness around it. - Albert Einstein

 

[Lunatic]

True, I have this wonderful ability to not state everything I'm thinking, assuming instead that everyone else automatically is thinking what I'm thinking.

The example I gave (you can replace baseball cards with almost anything) is entirely dependent on being in the attic for another reason (and possibly not even looking for anything, maybe just cleaning it out helping parents move or something like that). It works even better if the searcher had thought that the parents had thrown the baseball cards out years earlier when cleaning...

 

[SantaMufasa]

...if the searcher had thought that the parents had thrown the baseball cards...

Would it not also be serendipity if, while cleaning out your parents' attic, you unexpectedly found your parents?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[rjoubert]

That really depends on what you found your parents doing in the attic.

 

[rjoubert]

Depending on what they were doing there, serendipity might not be the first word to come to mind...therapy, on the other hand...

 

[Lunatic]

Would it not also be serendipity if, while cleaning out your parents' attic, you unexpectedly found your parents?

That would be entirely dependent how you found your parents up in the attic...

Serendipity may not describe the event at all...

 

[rjoubert]

Sick minds think alike, eh Lunatic?

 

[SantaMufasa]

Sick minds think alike, eh Lunatic?

...Not only alike, but also at the same moment! Separated at birth, perhaps?

Mufasa
(aka Dave of Sandy, Utah, USA)
[I can provide you with low-cost, remote Database Administration services: see our website and contact me via www.dasages.com]

 

[Lunatic]

Thats it... No more Fox shows for me ;p

However, there is a second possibility as well... that is if they were both a little more rigid than usual... That might result in even more therapy....