Happy accident of a fairytale coinage

When Horace Walpole committed the word "serendipity" to paper for the first time 251 years ago, had he pondered the destiny of his neologism he could not have imagined its eventual popularity or, for that matter, its consequent debasement. For, while "serendipity" experienced a kinder fate than other Walpolian creations such as "triptology" - coined after observing Dr Johnson's "habit of repeating things thrice" - it has suffered corruption of meaning. That the journeying of this word warrants comprehensive examination is demonstrated by sociologist Robert Merton and historian Elinor Barber in The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity: A Study in Sociological Semantics and the Sociology of Science .

The book has a curious history. It was completed in 1958 but intentionally left unpublished, serving as a preparation for Merton's seminal work On the Shoulders of Giants (1965). Four decades later, the authors agreed to an Italian translation - published in 2002 after Barber's death - and now, a year or so after Merton's death, the English version has appeared. Merton encountered "serendipity" during the 1930s in the Oxford English Dictionary . From the entry, he learnt that the word had been formed by Walpole "upon the title of the fairy tale, The Three Princes of Serendip , the heroes of which 'were always making discoveries by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of'". Merton was intrigued because this accorded with his theories on the importance of the unintended consequences of intended actions. Thus began the combined etymological and sociological quest that resulted in The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity .

Initial chapters detail the word's origin, starting with the 1557 publication in Venice of The Three Princes of Serendip , a tale concerning the deductive powers of the sons of the philosopher-king of Serendip (today's Sri Lanka). In a letter to Horace Mann dated January 28, 1754, Walpole described a heraldic discovery as "of that kind which I call Serendipity". He continued by revealing his succinct definition, but then blurred it by providing an inadequate example from The Three Princes . The authors remark: "The complexity of meaning with which Walpole endowed serendipity... was permanently to enrich and to confuse its semantic history." Such history was a blank page for many decades as Walpole's word-child lay dormant until the 1833 publication of his correspondence.

"Serendipity" reappeared in print only during the 1870s with the discussion of the word's etymology in the journal Notes and Queries . Hence the word was introduced to a small erudite group, many of them collectors like Walpole, who were familiar with the phenomenon of accidental and sagacious discovery. From the turn of the 20th century, "serendipity" gained acceptance for its aptness of meaning among a more diversified literary circle. Between 1909 and 1934, the word appeared in all the "big" and medium-sized English and American dictionaries. As significant was its 1951 inclusion in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary , which reflected the increased likelihood of the casual reader encountering the word in its "downward percolation". In tracing the lexicographical history of the word, the authors reveal disparities in definition - for instance, some dictionaries overlook the "sagacity" aspect - and assumed characteristics, such as that serendipitous finds are necessarily valuable and made while looking for something else. A shortcoming of the book surfaces at this juncture. Merton left the original text unrevised as a time capsule, adding an extensive afterword that updates the subject. Therefore the reader is taxed by the dislocated and dispersed manner in which some of the research is presented.

By 1958, "serendipity" had appeared in print only 135 times. Merton assembles remarkable statistics in the afterword to illustrate its rapid diffusion since. "Serendipity" appears in the titles of 57 books between 1958 and 2000, in newspapers 13,000 times during the 1990s, and in 636,000 documents on the worldwide web in 2001. Along the way, the word's initial sense became eroded, until, as Merton laments, "it is taken to mean little more than a Disneylike expression of pleasure, good feeling, joy, or happiness... No longer a niche-word filling a semantic gap, the vogue word became a vague word".

Serendipity has always been present in discovery: Colombus's discovery of America, Fleming's discovery of penicillin and Nobel's discovery of dynamite are just a few examples. The book's later chapters trace science's uneven embrace of "serendipity", which began in the 1930s when Walter Cannon of Harvard Medical School used the word to refer to the phenomenon of accidental discovery in scientific research. In March 1946, Merton unveiled his concept of the "serendipity pattern" in empirical research, "of observing an unanticipated, anomalous, and strategic datum, which becomes the occasion for developing a new theory". Thus Merton contributes to the history he charts.

Although some corporations have subscribed to the serendipity pattern, demand for sustained progress in research often bars scientists from taking the sidetracks that on occasion lead to accidental discovery of new knowledge. Furthermore, scientific findings are presented according to certain narrative conventions that obscure serendipity's vital role in the acquisition of new knowledge by providing the opportunity for discovery.

The authors demonstrate that the natural scepticism of science towards new words and new theories has a social origin.

Merton fails to reveal that his book is not without precedent due to the delay in publication, for in 1965 there appeared Serendipity and the Three Princes , edited by Theodore Remer, which covers much of the territory explored by Merton and Barber. No doubt Remer's work will henceforth be overshadowed. Nevertheless it is more absolute as it contains the only direct English translation of The Three Princes . Conversely, The Travels and Adventures of Serendipity shows signs of being incomplete due to its extraordinary gestation. The book is, however, redeemed by stringent scholarship and an elegant style. It will be of sure appeal to Merton's aficionados in the social sciences, and it should also attract lexicographers and etymologists.

Richard Boyle is a language consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary and author of Knox's Words.