When I wrote a pretty mediocre short story at the age of seventeen called 'Strnadenforp's Drunken, Cerebral Outsider', I set the story in an unspecified harbour/beach in a Scandinavian location. I had no idea what 'Strandenforp' meant - it just had a good ring to it.
However, I had unwittingly, by a stroke of chance, used a Swedish word. After watching a few Ingmar Bergman movies I discovered that 'Stranden' meant 'Beach' (and let's face it - most Bergman films are set in gloomy beaches, so I was bound to pick up on this word).
This isn't the only time such coincidences have happened to me. I find it incredible how, for some unfathomably latent reason, I christened this story with a Scandinavian word, a word I had never encountered in any shape or form in the past. The music of chance.
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