I’m a sucker for words that sound wonderful regardless of their meaning. And few words fit the bill better than serendipity. It suggests the title of a 1940s Hollywood movie, don’t you think? A mystery romance set in the misty lowlands of Shangri-La with Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn in the lead roles, backed by a sweeping soundtrack featuring swelling violins and a wondrous choir.
As it happens, serendipity is a happy word indeed. It was coined by Horace Walpole (1717-92), 4th Earl of Orford, who said he formed it from the Persian fairy tale The Three Princes of Serendip. In this story, our heroes embark on a search for a lost camel and end up “making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”.
You’ll be happy to know they did also find the camel. How they lost the beast, and in what condition they found it, I don’t know. I’m prepared to guess, though, that they weren’t the brightest candles in the box. I know Walpole says they achieved their good fortune by sagacity, but it’s beyond me how one person - let alone three - can be wise yet capable of misplacing an animal the size of a small truck.
Where is Serendip? you may ask. It’s an old name for Ceylon, which is an old name for Sri Lanka, which, one fervently hopes, is not an old name for anywhere.
Believe it or not, the name Serendip itself also has an impressive lineage. It’s from the Arabic Sarandib, which comes from the Sanskrit Simhaladvipa, or Dwelling-Place-of-Lions Island. Ironically, bumping unexpectedly into lions is generally not a happy accident, no matter what island you’re on.
In 2004 serendipity was named by translation company Today Phrases as one of the ten English words hardest to translate. Given the word’s most un-English origins, that’s also surely ironic.
I know you’re dying to know what the other nine words were, so here’s the full list, with the most untranslatable words first: kitsch, chuffed, bumf, whimsy, spam, googly, poppycock, serendipity, gobbledegook, plenipotentiary.
You have to love the winner; kitsch is not only hard to translate from English, it’s hard to translate into English. And before you start firing off irate, spittle-flecked comments at me (you know who you are), I do know kitsch is German. I didn't make up the rules for this game; I'm just telling you the results. And don’t bother complaining to Today Phrases either. As far as I can tell, they’ve disappeared off the face of the Earth. Maybe they closed shop out of shame.
Or maybe not. English is a mongrel of a language, made up of a handful of Old English words valiantly waving the flag amidst a tsunami of words borrowed (aka stolen) from other languages and frequently bent and twisted into shapes that English speakers’ mouths can cope with until they bear little resemblance to their original form (and, also with startling frequency, also carry little of their native charm).
On that basis, I say if someone wants to add the German word kitsch to a list of allegedly English words, good for them.
While I’m at it, let’s also remember that not all “loan” words in English were nabbed by English speakers. A good number of them - all from French, I believe - entered the language because a foreign army invaded that fair land, killed its king, took over the royal court and high-handedly decreed French to be the official language henceforth. That’s not English theft, it’s French coercion.
Let me hasten to add that English speakers are in no position to complain here. English didn’t munificently “gift” words to languages like Māori (to take one example), as some people are fond of claiming. It said “here we are and thanks for the land” before proceeding to run roughshod over the locals and foist its customs, religion, language, laws and a million other things on people who’d been getting on fine for centuries without the benefit of those things.
As for enjoying words regardless of their meaning, one of the happy developments over the last century or so has been a willingness among writers to explore language for its sound as much as, if not more than, its meaning. James Joyce may have been one of the pioneers here. He described his final novel, Finnegans Wake, as a “tower of babble” that mixed together bits and pieces of more than 40 languages.
Sometimes the weird looking words in his novel do have a discernible meaning, but not always. At times, the discernible meaning takes a lot of discerning before you can see it. No wonder critic Darragh McManus only half-jokingly calls it “the work of linguistic gobbledegook that all other works of linguistic gobbledegook reverentially call The Supreme Being”.
Gertrude Stein also took up the challenge, coining adages like “The change of color is likely and a difference a very little difference is prepared. Sugar is not a vegetable.” There is meaning in there, but anyone looking for it in the everyday sense of that word will come up empty handed.
Those writers played a big part in the emergence of the Language (or L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E) poets in the 1970s, who largely dismiss poetry as a vehicle of personal expression in favour of emphasising the reader's role in bringing meaning to what’s written. To anyone unfamiliar with this type of poetry, it can be bizarre, jarring, intimidating, and even infuriating.
But don’t dismiss it out of hand. Popular culture also caught the bug a long time ago. Just listen to Sitting Still from REM’s 1983 album Murmur - complete nonsense, if ever a song was, and a joy it is too. Or Talking Heads’ 1979 song I Zimbra, the lyrics of which are from a dadaist poem written in the early 20th century.
And that’s just songs that are deliberately nonsensical. You could argue - and I would - that the writers of many popular songs are under the delusion that they’ve written something deep and meaningful whereas, in reality, their musings would not go amiss as a blessedly short chapter within Finnegans Wake.
Bits and specious
On a serious note, most of my readers will be acutely aware of the recent cyclone that tore through the upper half of New Zealand - and more than a few will have been impacted by it. It’s hard to know what to say in a situation like this, because no words can possibly be enough for anyone who’s lost a loved one, or their home, or their livelihood. Like so many others, I’m shocked at the devastation the cyclone caused and in awe of those who did so much to help others - often putting themselves in real danger to do so.
One of the less edifying elements of the cyclone was the determination of a handful of radio commentators to not only downplay its likely impact, but also to mock the safety measures authorities were taking, such as closing schools ahead of its arrival. The media has an important role in providing an alternative commentary to official lines, but when it’s based on sheer cussedness mixed with ignorance, that’s just reckless. Shame on them.
Talking Heads keyboardist Jerry Harrison lists I Zimbra as his favourite of all the group’s songs. Given the quality and volume of their output, that’s saying something. If I had to pick a song, it’d probably be The Great Curve. Readers’ views on this important topic are welcomed.
Quote of the week
There is a fine line between serendipity and stalking.
David Coleman