coincidentally = ironically = also

[Jonathan Lighter]

"Coincidence" and "coincidentally" used to be words that you learned the meaning of almost at birth.  Even before you discovered what a "novel" was.

  The source of the quote, if you missed it, is a multivolume reference work for high-school and college students who need to write papers on literature.  I really must check its application of the word "novel."

  JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: coincidentally = ironically = also
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On 2/1/07, Charles Doyle wrote:
>
> >From: Jonathan Lighter
> >
> >Discovered, as usual, by chance:
> >
> > 1999 _Novels for Students_ (ed. D. A. Stanley) (Detroit: Gale) VII 53:
> > Though written in 1891, _Billy Budd_...was first published posthumously
> > in 1924. Coincidentally, the English composer Edward Benjamin Britten,
> > aided by E. M. Forster's libretto, made _Billy Budd_ into an opera in 1951.
>
> Or is "coincidentally" simply used in place of (perhaps confused with) "incidentally"?

This follows the well-known rule that a word sounds fancier with extra
syllables in front. Cf. "epicenter" = 'center', "penultimate" =
'ultimate', "quintessential" = 'essential', "juxtaposition" =
'position', etc.

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--Ben Zimmer

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