zompist bboard

I don't know if this has been discussed here before, but 'on accident' is a variation of 'by accident' which I often see on the Internet, although I've never actually heard anyone say it in the wild (I live in the south of England.) After doing a bit of Googling, it seems that 'on accident' is a feature of some American dialects and seems to be more common among the younger age group. I was unable to find out, however, whether 'on accident' is a recent innovation, by analogy with 'on purpose', or if it's been with us for a long time.

The Online Grammar Police seem to hate 'on accident.' Language guardians on the internet do not have a kind word to say about it. They (blog writers & others) claim that you must say 'on purpose' and 'by accident.' Nobody I've spoken to has been able to say why 'on accident' is wrong, simply that it is wrong and that's that.

So, my questions are:

Does anyone know anything about the origins of 'on accident' as a variation of 'by accident', and is it a very recent phenomenon? Any information would be really helpful.

Do you use 'on accident' in your idiolect, or does it sound strange or ungrammatical to you?

It doesn't sound strange to me, although I know it's technically incorrect. I remember being in late elementary school or junior high and saying "on accident" and my dad corrected me. He was a teacher by profession, although not an English teacher. Still, he gave me a rather stern scolding (which I know find humorous) and ever since then I've paid attention to it. That would have been some 25 years ago now, so it has been around for a while.

It is widely present* in the area I was raised in, although I stopped using it after my dad kept mocking me and my brothers whenever we said it as children, although sometimes I would say 'by purpose' at him just to strike back.

*based on personal observation rather than any real study.

I think I hear/use "on accident" predominantly, and I've never been chastised for using it.

I've never heard anyone saying "on accident", and to me it just sounds wrong.

Strange and ungrammatical for me.

Related American prepositional fun: I recently saw an early episode of Buffy, which contained the line:
"I don't care from private! I care from dead guys attacking us. I care from you lost weekending in your apartment."

Woah....

Salmoneus wrote:Strange and ungrammatical for me.

Related American prepositional fun: I recently saw an early episode of Buffy, which contained the line:
"I don't care from private! I care from dead guys attacking us. I care from you lost weekending in your apartment."

Woah....

...which episode?

Polling two: one has heard of it, I have not.

It was suggested that it might be a feature/innovation of AAVE. I am not sure about that, any thoughts?

Shameless plug, my conlangs tend to differentiate accidental action by agents/subjects by marking them as Locative--rather than nominative~absolute. I think it is interesting that accidental actions tend to crop up as locatives or instrumentals.

...I never knew there was supposed to be anything wrong with "on accident". You learn something new every day! Both "on" and "by" are acceptable to me, but I think I prefer the former. The latter sounds a little stuffy and formal to my ear.

edit: also yes, I agree with Nort, that use of "from" is so ungrammatical that I'm not even confident of what meaning is intended.

Salmoneus: That's completely ungrammatical for me. I have no idea what it's even supposed to mean.

2+3 clusivity wrote:It was suggested that it might be a feature/innovation of AAVE. I am not sure about that, any thoughts?

I've always thought of it as an AAVE thing, but given the circumstances under which I grew up (for the first twelve years of my life I met a total of probably less than ten people who were both not black and under 40), any grammatical feature present in general speech around here but not the rather more conservative dialect my family speaks registers as an AAVE thing to me whether it really is or not. (Also: is "put it up" for "put it away" AAVE?)

Salmoneus wrote:Strange and ungrammatical for me.

Related American prepositional fun: I recently saw an early episode of Buffy, which contained the line:
"I don't care from private! I care from dead guys attacking us. I care from you lost weekending in your apartment."

Woah....

That sounds like a Portuguese-speaking man who asked me (when I was a kid) if i was "play for fire" (yes, yes i was).

Nortaneous wrote: (Also: is "put it up" for "put it away" AAVE?)

It's definitely not limited to it. They're almost (almost) interchangeable for me.

Interesting, thanks for the replies. Roughly speaking then, some people here use 'on accident' and have never been corrected for it, others have heard of it but would never use it, and to some of us, it sounds very odd. I don't think any non-Americans said they use it but please correct me if I'm wrong!

A possible AAVE origin is intriguing. I'll have to look into this.

I've never heard this "on accident" thing.

Nessari wrote:

Salmoneus wrote:Strange and ungrammatical for me.

Related American prepositional fun: I recently saw an early episode of Buffy, which contained the line:
"I don't care from private! I care from dead guys attacking us. I care from you lost weekending in your apartment."

Woah....

...which episode?

The Dark Age.

I had a feeling I'd heard it before, although I may have been confusing it with other weird American uses of 'from' (eg 'different from'). Tried searching, but it's difficult to get meaningful responses on google for that sort of thing. Especially if it's only a spoken thing rather than a formal written thing (given the context - teen-audienced media portrayal of emotional teenager - it may have been a colloquial expression).
If nobody recognises it here/now, was that maybe a preposition use current in California in the '90s?

Wait, if "different from" is an Americanism, what is the English equivalent?

Salmoneus wrote:Related American prepositional fun: I recently saw an early episode of Buffy, which contained the line:
"I don't care from private! I care from dead guys attacking us. I care from you lost weekending in your apartment."

I've never heard such a thing. It sounds like an extension of "know from", as in "What do I know from quantum mechanics?", which is a Yiddishism.

Pertinent map:



http://spark.rstudio.com/jkatz/SurveyMaps/

There are only shades of red on that map...

Yeah, this map is just a composite of all results. It's mostly all red because "by accident" is overwhelmingly the most common. if you follow the link (it's #98 in the list) you can see the individual results for each option (click on the "Complete Results" tab).

I had actually been trying to find it in that list; thank you for pointing it out.
Interestings and more interestings...

Hallow XIII wrote:Wait, if "different from" is an Americanism, what is the English equivalent?

*blinks*
Yup, good point. See, I get confused easily.

'Different from' is indeed British. I had in my head that American have a different preposition from the English, and I thought of English as having 'different to', so, given the context, I unthinkingly assumed Americans had 'different from'.
Actually, 'different from' is used in Britain (and I think in America?), and it's 'different than' that's the weird American one (although I might use it in the phrase 'no different than...'? I've now said these things too many times to judge accurately what sounds normal to me).

Nessari wrote:I had actually been trying to find it in that list; thank you for pointing it out.
Interestings and more interestings...

Shock #1: people who say 'on accident' are also more likely to have /z/ in 'thespian' but /s/ in 'citizen'. More generally, there seems to be a dialect affinity between northwest wisconsin and the coastal border between north carolina and virginia. Any reason for that?

Shock #2: most americans have /p/ in 'amphitheatre'??? I wouldn't even have guess that as a possibility (I was thinking it was going to be about the 'th' or the 'tr'...)

Well, the map seems to rule out an AAVE origin. How/where "on accident" did originate does not seem at all clear...

Salmoneus wrote:Shock #1: people who say 'on accident' are also more likely to have /z/ in 'thespian' but /s/ in 'citizen'. More generally, there seems to be a dialect affinity between northwest wisconsin and the coastal border between north carolina and virginia. Any reason for that?

That is shocking! I'm pretty sure northwest Wisconsin was settled mostly by Scandinavian (and perhaps German) immigrants, not domestic implants from the Tidewater.

Salmoneus wrote:Shock #2: most americans have /p/ in 'amphitheatre'??? I wouldn't even have guess that as a possibility (I was thinking it was going to be about the 'th' or the 'tr'...)

At first, I was shocked by this, but upon further reflection I have a [p] in fast speech. I think there's a phonetic basis for this: nasal+stop clusters are a lot easier to articulate than nasal+fricative clusters. There might be a dissimilatory effect as well between the acoustically similar [f] and [T], as seen in [dIp.TaN] for <diphthong>.

I'm pretty sure I have /θɛspin̩/ and /sɪɾɪzn̩/. On the other hand, I've never thought of "amphitheatre" as having anything but /p/ (and may have spelled it without an <h> often.)