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June 02, 2005
Vishy's Useless Factoid of the Day #10: What does serendipity have to do with Sri Lanka?
The word serendipity was coined in a Jan 28, 1754 letter by the English author Sir Horace Walpole to describe lucky accidents. He created this word from the title of an old fairy tale called The Three Princes of Serendip, who "... were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things which they were not in quest of...? Serendip derives from the Persian Sarandip, which in turn comes from the Arabic sarandib. This word is an old name for today's Sri Lanka.
Hm, any other present day English words containing country names? How about the word indigo? Indigo descends from indicum (Lat.)/Indikon (Gr.), meaning "from India". It was a simple name for a shade of blue so distinctive that it was just called "the Indian dye". Did Microsoft name its sexy new messaging system after the large number of Indians who are probably working on it?
That, my friends, has been today's useless factoid from the World's Largest Repository of Useless Knowledge.
Sources: serendipity, indigo. *sigh* The things you learn from Answers.com.
Posted by Vishy at June 2, 2005 12:07 AM