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Opposites Attract?
Could the opposite
Of serendipity
Be pity?
When you venture out
Looking for something
Truly wonderful
And all you find
Is shit
On your shoe
Like crap
On your soul
by Jemia
Of serendipity
Be pity?
When you venture out
Looking for something
Truly wonderful
And all you find
Is shit
On your shoe
Like crap
On your soul
by Jemia
Published 28th Nov 2021
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28th Nov 2021 11:37am
I think it's actually zemblanity - smiles - which is much as you describe
28th Nov 2021 3:09pm
thank you. zemblanity, there's a word i like. it's not in my OED, and googled it. my OED has failed me! i shall protest to them in the strongest terms!! although in reality, i'll do nothing, and just enjoy the word, and won't feel so discombobulated next time i see it! lol :)
28th Nov 2021 11:03pm
"Zemblanity
In an ideal lexicographical world, every word ought to be matched with its opposite, its antonym. Ever since 1754, when Horace Walpole created serendipity — the ability to make unexpected and fortunate discoveries — it has had to survive without one. It is only recently appeared:
So what is the opposite of Serendip, a southern land of spice and warmth, lush greenery and hummingbirds, seawashed, sunbasted? Think of another world in the far north, barren, icebound, cold, a world of flint and stone. Call it Zembla. Ergo: zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design. Serendipity and zemblanity: the twin poles of the axis around which we revolve.
Armadillo, by William Boyd, 1998.
Boyd’s source may be a strangely constructed novel by Vladimir Nabokov of 1962, Pale Fire, which features the “distant northern land” of Zembla and a series of apparent coincidences that are actually a deliberate linkage of events. Nabokov's reference is surely to Novaya Zemlya, a group of Arctic islands owned by Russia, which were at one time commonly referred to in English as Nova Zembla. Zemlya means earth or land in Russian, a prosaic word, but not in itself unpleasant.
Zemblanity hasn’t achieved mainstream status, though Mr Justice Michael Peart used it in a legal judgment in Ireland in 2012 and it has been borrowed as the title of a bit of madcap physical theatre, which was performed, for example, at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe."
I love words
Smiles
In an ideal lexicographical world, every word ought to be matched with its opposite, its antonym. Ever since 1754, when Horace Walpole created serendipity — the ability to make unexpected and fortunate discoveries — it has had to survive without one. It is only recently appeared:
So what is the opposite of Serendip, a southern land of spice and warmth, lush greenery and hummingbirds, seawashed, sunbasted? Think of another world in the far north, barren, icebound, cold, a world of flint and stone. Call it Zembla. Ergo: zemblanity, the opposite of serendipity, the faculty of making unhappy, unlucky and expected discoveries by design. Serendipity and zemblanity: the twin poles of the axis around which we revolve.
Armadillo, by William Boyd, 1998.
Boyd’s source may be a strangely constructed novel by Vladimir Nabokov of 1962, Pale Fire, which features the “distant northern land” of Zembla and a series of apparent coincidences that are actually a deliberate linkage of events. Nabokov's reference is surely to Novaya Zemlya, a group of Arctic islands owned by Russia, which were at one time commonly referred to in English as Nova Zembla. Zemlya means earth or land in Russian, a prosaic word, but not in itself unpleasant.
Zemblanity hasn’t achieved mainstream status, though Mr Justice Michael Peart used it in a legal judgment in Ireland in 2012 and it has been borrowed as the title of a bit of madcap physical theatre, which was performed, for example, at the 2009 Edinburgh Festival Fringe."
I love words
Smiles
28th Nov 2021 11:42pm
thank you :) i love words too, their usage, and etymology, and i'm disappointed that dictionaries can be quite selective at times, as a physical dictionary is my go to, as i love flicking through the pages for inspiration, but sometimes find interpretations of words can be varied depending on which dictionary, or if i can't find what i'm looking for, google, and how meanings can be variable, even 50 miles up the road they can have their individual quirks, and colloquialisms. it's like stepping into a minefield, or sea of language, and finding i'm unable to swim...waving, not drowning. now where was i?
Jemia :)
Jemia :)
