Serendipity and Syzygy: Fortunate Accidents

Science Diction

Science Friday and WNYC Studios

Friday, Society & Culture, Science, Origin, Culture, Words, History, Word, Language

4.8 • 610 Ratings

🗓️ 25 May 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

How did a country's name end up inside the word, “serendipity"? And what’s a “syzygy"? And, more importantly, why does it have so many y’s? Over the past year, several listeners have written to us asking about these two words. Now, we answer—with a little help. Eli Chen and Justine Paradis join us for a round of Diction Dash, where Johanna tries (and usually fails) to guess the correct origin or meaning of a word. If you want us to cover a word on the show, get in touch! Give us a call, leave a message, and we might play it on the show. The number is 929-499-WORD, or 929-499-9673. Or, you can always send an email to [email protected]. Guests: Justine Paradis is a reporter and producer for Outside/In from New Hampshire Public Radio. Eli Chen is senior editor of Overheard at National Geographic. Footnotes & Further Reading: More on how a syzygy helped free the Suez ship at the Wall Street Journal Read The Three Princes of Serendip Credits: Science Diction is produced by Johanna Mayer and Senior Producer and Editor Elah Feder. Daniel Peterschmidt composed all our music. Fact checking by Robin Palmer. Nadja Oertelt is our Chief Content Officer.

Transcript

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0:00.0	After he saw how the candy bar melted, he put an egg under the magnetron tube and that exploded and covered his face an egg.
0:09.1	And thanks to that, we have the microwave.
0:12.1	Hello, hello. Science Diction is back with another round of Diction Dash, where I try and usually fail to guess the true meaning or origin of a word.
0:22.4	We've got a big old pile of words that you, our dear listeners, have sent to us.
0:27.2	So today, with the help of a couple friends, we are tackling two of them.
0:32.5	I'm Johanna Mayer. This is Diction Dash.
0:36.4	First up, Justine Paradise, a reporter and producer at Outside In from New Hampshire Public Radio.
0:42.9	Hi, Justine.
0:43.8	Hi, Johanna.
0:44.7	What listener suggested word do you have for us?
0:48.1	I have selected the word, scissigy.
0:51.4	Sizigy.
0:52.0	How do you spell that?
0:52.9	So actually, I read that this is the shortest word in the English language containing three
0:57.4	Y's, which I can't definitively confirm that to be true. I didn't go through the whole
1:01.7	dictionary, but three Y's and six letters is a very bold choice. So it's spelled S Y, Z, Y, G-Y,
1:10.4	Cizogy. Okay. And before we get to the quiz part of this, I'm just going to give you two. called S-Y-Z-Y-G-Y-Y. Sisy-G.
1:11.0	Okay.
1:11.8	And before we get to the quiz part of this, I'm just going to give you two clues.
1:16.1	So this is a word that has Latin and before that Greek and before that Proto-Indo-European origins.
1:21.6	Oh boy.
1:22.6	Right.
	...

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