Glossary-1

The theme of our regular meeting（No. 348）is “happiness”.

Everyone is seeking for happiness in their life.  What is the definition of “happiness”?

“Happiness” is derived from the adjective form, “happy”.  It means the state of being happy.  Therefore, if a person can always be happy without anything to worry about, the person can be called “a happy person”, and s/he will be a person of happiness.

Happy is derived from ‘hap + y’.

In Old English, “hap” meant “fortune”.  If we want to have an adjective form of “hap”, we have to add the adjective suffix –y after “hap”.  Nevertheless, “hap” is a one-syllable word, and it ends with a consonant, ‘p’.  We have to repeat the consonant before adding the suffix –y.  Therefore, the final word form results in

“hap + p + y”— “happy” meaning “fortunate”.

After the word “happy” is formed, the noun of “happy” has been derived by adding another suffix to become a noun form.  The word “happy” is attached to ‘-ness’ to form the noun form, and it results in “happyness”.  Nevertheless, this word formation is not a standard English form.  Linguists changed ‘y’ into ‘i’.  As a result, the final word form has become “happiness”.  This final form is what we have nowadays.

There is a proverb:

A blessing in disguise.  If we translate this proverb into Chinese, it means:

塞翁失馬；因禍得福

Another phrase is:

happy-go-lucky

which means, in Chinese, “隨遇而安的；無憂無慮的”。

Excellence Toast Masters Club always Keeps open house to you

Every 1^st & 3^rd Tuesday 6:30~9:30 pm at 1^st floor No. 110, Jin-hua St. 

(Ching-hua University, Taipei Office)

Welcome to join us