Serendipity

Ferninda told me that she was watching a movie called Serendipity. So I asked her if she knew the origins of the word. It has its origins in the ancient Arabic/Persian name for Sri Lanka: Serendib.

I discovered that 'serendipity' has been listed by a British translation company as one of the 10 hardest words to translate.

Here's the list:

1. Plenipotentiary
2. Gobbledegook
3. Serendipity
4. Poppycock
5. Googly
6. Spam
7. Whimsy
8. Bumf
9. Chuffed
10. Kitsch

 They also have a list of non-English words that are hard to translate.

Here are a couple:

For specificity there's Selathirupavar  (செல்லாதிருப்பவர்), tamil for a certain type of truancy and for meaness there's Klloshar,  Albanian for loser.

Check out the rest here.