Merriam-Webster adds new entries to its dictionary every year.
“Wordies”—one of the 2018 words that reflects word lovers—may enjoy knowing that “pickleball” and “fabulosity” were 2019 entrants to the resource. Fans of “zonkeys,” a cross between zebras and donkeys, may be delighted to know that this animal was among the 535 additions in 2020. And, if you like a “fluffernutter,” you will be happy to see this on the 2021 list.
Maybe the upcoming 2022 entries will feature a word that, unless I am mistaken, is not in the English language yet: eustake.
I propose a “good mistake” being a eustake. After all, the English language has “eustress” for positive stressors such as wedding engagements and job promotions. We give eulogies, feel euphoric, play the euphonium, and listen to the Eurythmics. We can shout “eureka!” when discovering a new kind of eubacteria. Maybe it’s time for “eustake” to find its way into the next dictionary.
Eustake (noun) /you-stake/: a small-m “mistake” where learning and growth subsequently occur.
When it comes to creative thinking and problem-solving, the process can be full of fantastic failures…er, eustakes…en route to finding new approaches and insights. Imagine how many lives were aided by Wilson Greatbatch’s eustake. While working as professor in electrical engineering in 1956, he grabbed the wrong resistor in his work on a device to record heart rhythms. Realizing that the ensuing circuit mirrored the pulses of a heartbeat, he used the eustake to perfect an implantable human pacemaker, something that now helps over 700,000 cardiac patients throughout the world each year.
Another eustake was happening around the same time in Rochester, NY. Harry Coover and his Eastman Kodak team were assigned to create a new material for the cockpit of jet planes. In the process, however, one of his chemists accidentally destroyed an expensive instrument with an adhesive material that made the lenses bond together. Though the device was ruined, Coover realized that the adhesive could become a mega-glue. It did, and the innovative product hit the market in the late-1950s under various names, including Superglue.
As much as those seeking perfectionism may not like it, all people who create, you and I alike, sometimes need to fail to produce. Ask professional athletes. As tennis great Venus Williams said in a magazine article, “Sometimes you make mistakes, but there are good mistakes—the ones that lead to the next championship.” Baseball pitcher Tommy John was credited with making three errors on one play in 1988, yet only allowed one run thereafter en route to a 16-3 Yankee win. Babe Ruth had nearly 4000 strikes called against him in striking out over 1300 times, yet also reportedly said, “Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
Ask chefs, politicians, and comedians. Toasted ravioli was supposedly sparked by a cook who, by accident, dropped the pasta into hot oil instead of hot water. Maybe Abraham Lincoln would describe eustakes in his US Senate defeats before his victory in the 1860 presidential election. Comedians inevitably had sets that bombed, yet those “failures” may have turned into eustakes as they got back on stage again and again.
In their 2013 book, Babineaux and Krumboltz offer a grand reminder: To be a successful teacher, writer, or artist, for instance, people must first have some not-so-great classes, articles, or art works.
Think “eustakes” galore. Let’s start to embrace and celebrate our inevitable eustakes in life. It may just land the word in a future dictionary.
Reference:
Babineaux, R., & Krumboltz, J. (2013). Fail fast, fail often: How losing can help you win. Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin.