Mark Liberman on Language Log recently wrote about the word "happenstantially" that was used on a recent NPR broadcast. Have you seen the word used? It looks like it is on the way up.

quote:

happenstantially

A happenstance is an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental - a lucky accident.

Adverbs, like verbs, can be created from most (all?) English nouns in my experience.

I've not seen or heard it used, that I can recall, but I do like it.

Just to be pedantic, adverbs are usually formed from adjectives, and those adjectives may be formed from nouns.

happenstance n. sb. => happenstantial n. adj. => happenstantially adv.

I first noticed happenstance in college. Great word. There was a French movie, a while back, whose English title was Happenstance, but in French it was Le Battement d'ailes du papillon (2000, lit. The Flapping of a Butterfly's Wings). It starred Audrey Tautou and was rather good. Surprisingly, the adjectival form gets double the number of ghits as the adverb. And for the latter, the language Log entry is top of the page.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
A happenstance is an event that might have been arranged although it was really accidental - a lucky accident.

I don't really like that definition. What does "an event that might have been arranged ..." mean? I take it to mean "an event that looks as if it were arranged ...". If that's what it means, why doesn't it just say so?

Other definitions I've read are "a chance happening or event," or "a chance circumstance," an others that are similar. I prefer this definition because it removes the "event that might have been arranged," and "lucky accident." I think of "lucky accident" as the definition of serendipity.

The OED Online defines happenstance as "A chance event; a coincidence. Occas. in altered form happenchance". Amoung the quotes is one from a 1941 Sat. Even. Post: "Even if by happen-chance a hailstorm didn't come along and ruin the crop, there was always something to fight." Hmm, a hailstorm ruining a crop. That doesn't sound like a lucky accident or that it could have been arranged.

I've probably used the word happenstance before – I don’t remember – but I would normally use coincidence.

Maybe I'm just being picky.

Tinman

If you fall down, it is a haplesstance?

Oh, Asa, you really should have gone into comedy!

I have heard of "happenstance" before, just not "happenstantially." I thought it interesting that Robert Siegel on NPR clarified the word during the broadcast. I agree with Liberman that I, too, probably wouldn't have noticed had Siegel not questioned the word. I do enjoy Siegel and wish I had the chance to hear his program more often.

quote:

I take it to mean "an event that looks as if it were arranged ...". If that's what it means, why doesn't it just say so?

Because happenstance is one word; "an event that looks as if it were arranged ..." is nine.

quote:

Originally posted by Richard English:
Because happenstance is one word; "an event that looks as if it were arranged ..." is nine.

You misunderstood me, Richard. I meant to ask why the definition didn't say "an event that looks as if it were arranged ..." rather than "an event that might have been arranged ...". I thought my meaning was clear, but apparently it wasn't. I have no problem with the word happenstance itself, just with the wording in that particular definition.

Tinman