| 词组 | fortuitous |
| 释义 | fortuitous Our evidence at the present time is not conclusive, but it appears that sometime after World War I—certainly by the 1920s—fortuitous began to be used in a sense meaning "fortunate, lucky." Fowler 1926 seems to have been the first to notice the use. He laid the development to the sound of fortunate and the meaning of lucky. It is impossible to know for certain, but felicitous may also have had some influence. After all, fortuitous sounds like a blend of fortunate and felicitous, and its new meaning resembles a blend of its original meaning and the meaning of felicitous. Fowler was apparently alone in noticing the new sense (he considered it an error) until well after World War II. The next commentator in our collection who mentions the use is Bernstein 1958. After Bernstein there are many commentators (we have about twenty) who disapprove the use. We do have one (Shaw 1975, 1987) who merely notices the use and two (Harper 1975, 1985 and Copperud 1970, 1980) who notice that the sense is already recorded in American dictionaries. The oldest meaning offortuitous—which has been the predominant sense all along—is "occurring by chance": • ... a certain Fortuitous Concourse of all Mens Opinions —Jonathan Swift, A Tale of a Tub, 1710 • His presence in Berlin was quite fortuitous. He had come to deliver a memorial address —William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall ofthe Third Reich, 1960 Samuel Johnson even used it to mean "controlled by chance" in one of the memoranda he wrote to himself for purposes of self-correction: • Of this vacillation and vagrancy of mind I impute a great part to a fortuitous and unsettled life, and therefore purpose to spend my time with more method —day after Easter, 1778, quoted in Paul Fussell, Samuel Johnson and the Life of Writing, 1971 There is, as Reader's Digest 1983 observes, a use intermediate between "by chance" and "fortunate." It is applied to something that is a chance occurrence, but has a favorable result. The seeds for this use were planted long ago. In the following 18th-century example, the writer is using the primary sense. But notice how easy it is to find overtones of good fortune: • Acquisitions of knowledge, like blazes of genius, are often fortuitous. Those who had proposed to themselves a methodical course of reading, light by accident on a new book, which seizes their thoughts and kindles their curiosity, and opens an unexpected prospect —Bennett Langton, The Idler, 28 July 1759 This sort of context probably prefigured our intermediate sense, which has occurred, until very recently, about as often as the "fortunate" sense does in our files. Some examples: • Our expansion as a world power was helped by acquisition of the Panama Canal project which had bankrupted a French company. This piece of business was aided and abetted by a fortuitous revolution in Panama that had a suspicious smell, though the President denied he had any part in promoting it —John Kieran ed., Information Please Almanac 1948 • I think I reported not long ago in The New Yorker ... how I was saved in college one night by the fortuitous appearance in the night skies of the most brilliant aurora borealis seen in Ohio since the Civil War —James Thurber, letter, 21 May 1954 • It was on the second night, July 27-28, that Bomber Command came nearest to its objective of total destruction, through a number of circumstances, largely fortuitous. The weather was fine. Clear skies, as well as luck and judgment, meant exceptionally accurate marking —Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Times Literary Supp., 26 Dec. 1980 • She panted into the underground, snatched a ticket from the machine, belted down the stairs, and there was a fortuitous train —Doris Lessing, The Good Terrorist, 1985 • It hit because of a fortuitous combination of historical forces —Louise Bernikow, Playboy, August 1986 It is tempting to speculate, then, that the sense development of fortuitous went from "chance" to "chance with a good outcome" to "fortunate." Such development is plausible, but cannot be supported by evidence in our files, unless one wants to interpret Bennett Lang-ton as using the intermediate sense—and we do not think he was. The earliest evidence we have for a changed sense, both in our own files and in Fowler's examples, is for the "fortunate" sense: • Take, for example, the peculiarly fortuitous circumstances under which he entered the Scribner publishing house —Edward Bok, The Americanization of Edward Bok, 1920 We did not collect any more examples until after World War II. • ... a fortuitous escape from the seemingly inevitable death sentence —Franklin L. Ford, Saturday Rev., 10 May 1947 • It has been pointed out that it was fortuitous for Dunning that he had versed himself so well in radio fundamentals —Current Biography 1948 • We have a great and fortuitous advantage, for if there is nothing the Kremlin wants more than to rule the world, there is nothing the United States wants less than to rule the world —Adlai E. Stevenson, Call to Greatness, 1954 • This circumstance was a fortuitous one for Abraham Lockwood —John O'Hara, The Lockwood Concern, 1965 • ... one of the most fortuitous events in the recent history of pop music —Jon Landau, Rolling Stone, 13 May 1971 • But from a cost standpoint, the company's timing is fortuitous—Business Week, 13 Dec. 1982 • The opening of his firm had come at an extremely fortuitous time —Connie Bruck, Atlantic, December 1984 In present-day English we have three senses of fortuitous forming a gradation: "happening by chance," "happening by a lucky chance," and "lucky, fortunate." The third of these has been in use for almost seventy years and is recognized in several dictionaries. There is no question that it is established, especially in newspaper and magazine use, and even though it has lately received a great deal of unfavorable notice, it is showing no signs of going away. You can use the sense, but you must be prepared to catch a little flak if you do. It is harder to advise you about the intermediate use. It seems likely to continue in use, and because the element of chance is present in its meaning, it is unlikely to cause much stir. Only one commentator has noticed it so far, but it has also not yet been recognized in dictionaries. Our guess is that if you use fortuitous to mean "happening by a lucky chance," you have nothing to worry about. |
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