Have you ever heard someone say something you were certain had to be a mistake, only to find out later it wasn't? Here at That's What They Say, this doesn't happen very often, but it can be kind of mind-blowing when it does.
Our listener Mary Nakasone recently heard someone say that something occurred by "happenchance," i.e., it was random or unplanned.
"I had never heard that word before. I would have used the word “happenstance,” Nakasone says. "When I think about it, since the occurrence is by chance, 'happenchance' makes more sense, but did the person just misspeak?"
We had never heard "happenchance" before either and thought it might be an eggcorn. That's a word or phrase that, as Merriam-Webster puts it, "sounds like and is mistakenly used in a seemingly logical or plausible way for another word or phrase." A common example is "all intensive purposes" instead of "all intents and purposes."
As it turns out, it's not completely clear whether "happenchance" is an eggcorn.
Interestingly, "happenstance" and "happenchance" have both been in English for a long time. The Oxford English Dictionary cites 1857 for the first written evidence of "happenstance" and 1847 as the first written evidence of "happenchance."
Multiple dictionaries define "happenstance" as "something that happens by chance" or "a circumstance considered to be influenced by chance." Under "happenchance," they'll simply cross-reference to "happenstance," though the editors of the OED have marked the former as originally regional and colloquial.
While looking into "happenchance" and "happenstance," we happened upon "happen-so." For more on this happening trio, listen to the audio above.
