English has many imports. Many of our words have evolved from or are related to words in other languages, especially from Latin via French, or from German and Old Norse. Some, though, are more or less direct imports. One of my favourite words is serendipity, which comes from the old name for Sri Lanka. It's such a jolly word, and means such a jolly thing: something nice that happens by accident. Which, until we understood the exact structure of drug receptors, is how many of our drugs were discovered. Pethidine was intended as an atropine-like compound, until someone noticed that it made mice's tails stick up in the air—the Straub tail response, indicative of what we now call opioids.
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