Here's an interesting piece....

[conuly]

Has anybody else heard people using happy as a verb?

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/25/when-did-happy-become-a-verb/

Incidentally, the comments section has given me reason to turn to the online OED (man, I love the Internet!) to look up various words, including, of course, happy.

Happy is connected to the word happen through the root hap, which means roughly good luck. A happy person was originally a lucky person, which I guess would make anybody happy.

(Incidentally, etymonline lists happify from 1619 and says this about happy:

late 14c., "lucky, favored by fortune, prosperous;" of events, "turning out well," from hap (n.) "chance, fortune" + -y (2). Sense of "very glad" first recorded late 14c. Ousted Old English eadig (from ead "wealth, riches") and gesælig, which has become silly. Meaning "greatly pleased and content" is from 1520s. Old English bliðe "happy" survives as blithe. From Greek to Irish, a great majority of the European words for "happy" at first meant "lucky." An exception is Welsh, where the word used first meant "wise."

But I digress.)

Anyway, after looking up "happy" I looked up "hap" just to see what it said there, and came across this citation:

1681 W. Robertson Phraseologia Generalis (1693) 471 Some have the hap; some stick in the gap.

I like the rhythm of it. I almost want to resurrect the word just so I can say that (incessantly) when her nieces complain something or other that is a matter of chance just isn't fair.

Comments

[janewilliams20]

Then there's happenstance, perhaps, mayhap (OK, that one's pretty much obsolete), plain happen (including the dialect use of "happen she will" where "happen" means "perhaps")...
when you start looking for that root, it's everywhere!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"Hence will I to my ghostly father's cell,
His help to crave, and my dear hap to tell."

~Romeo's exit line, end of Act II, scene 2.

My favorite phrase in reply to complaints about 'unfair' happenstance is "It's just the luck o' the draw."

By the way, did I ever tell you about my indisputably-fair method of dividing up chores among children? First write down a number between 1 and 100, and have each take a guess. The kid who's closest gets first pick of the chores, next-closest gets second pick, etcetera. The element of choice softens the element of chance for them, even though there's no way to improve one's chances of winning the draw.

[conuly]

What if they're equally close?

(Last time the nieces asked me to give them a number, I said it was between one and two. I was in a cranky mood, it we managed a nice discussion on infinity regardless, which is good, because once they get started making me pick numbers between arbitrary points that can go on literally FOREVER.)

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I don't recall that ever happening, but if it did, I'd just pick another number for them to guess as a tie-breaker. My whole goal with the numbers game was to move expeditiously past the daily choosing-of-chores, and on to the actual doing-of-chores, without giving any pretext for a sea-lawyer debate as a delaying tactic. There is no sea-lawyer like an 11-year-old Aspie boy who doesn't want to clean the bathroom.

Why do your girlies want you to pick numbers between arbitrary points? Do they just like trying to guess them? Sheesh, I bet that does get old fast. "Between 1 and 2" is clever, and I can see how it would be satisfying on a cranky day - heh, what would they do with "between one-third and one-half", or "between one-fifth and two-fifths"?

[conuly]

Yes, they just like trying to guess.

[eofs.livejournal.com]

That explains why the German for happy is a false friend - Glücklich. (Actually, it's not always a false friend as it also means lucky. But obviously in many uses it does in fact mean happy.)

I thought it might explain the word happenstance, but wiktionary says that's happening + circumstance.