647: serendipity Sep 15, 2016

Some places, as according to foreigners, have the same place-names applied for a long time despite differing from the native one, like how China and Wales were basically the same exonym since the time of the Romans, while places like Germany have tons of names. The fact that the island nation of Sri Lanka has gone by many names (really, exonyms) over its history including Ceylon and the Persian-derived Serendib, is perhaps just as serendipitous, or perhaps not. In 1754 Horace Walpole came out with, The Three Princes of Serendip, on the basis of an earlier Persian story. In his tale, the protagonists, “were always making discoveries, by accidents and sagacity, of things they were not in quest of”. We get 'serendipity' from this word.