Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Grammar Girl, Grammar Girl's, QDnow, and Quick and Dirty Tips are all trademarks of Macmillan Holdings, LLC. Today I'm going to talk about on accident versus by accident and how language changes. Skip Robinson grammar A P.S. to my previous post. What's really piqued my interest in this phrase is the widening 'literate' usage of 'on accident' by folks who matter. Most recently in an NPR interview with an author who was, well, worth interviewing on NPR. How many of us qualify there? Disputing language usage carries even less weight than aruging about politics or religion. It is what it is. Fretting is futile. There is no logic whatever in 'on' vs. 'by'. What prevails in the judgement of the eight-year old who disses pointless irregularity and complexity in favor of common sense. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=21252#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=21252#Comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:50:49 GMT Skip Robinson grammar This usage has captivated me since my kids (now in their 30s) were young. They would say 'on accident' I'm sure to impose a bit of regularity on chaos. Why after all should we say 'on purpose' but 'by accident' when those two phrases are firmly wedded in everyone's lexicon as simple opposites? Used in conversation as often together as true or false, hot or cold, good or bad. The twist here is that 'on accident' has won the battle. The English language as moved on. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=21250#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=21250#Comments Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:04:23 GMT Maral grammar I don't know if this pertains but "by accident" could have been derived from a previous era's "by way of accident." That sounds correct to me. By - by - by. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20839#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20839#Comments Sat, 07 Nov 2009 07:38:57 GMT Rob grammar Marc, The prepositional phrase in this example does provide adverbial information. Of course, "accidentally" works too, but "by accident" is very standard English, acceptable in anything from casual speech to a PhD thesis. Personally, I've always used "by," and "on accident" sounds really uneducated to me. However, I think that almost any attempt to rationally justify preposition use is doomed from the outset. It's pure convention that causes us to use "by accident," and it could just as easily have been "from accident" or "of accident." I don't like this change, but I have to agree that it's inevitable and really doesn't constitute any degradation of the language, since it's a matter of changing convention alone. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20104#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20104#Comments Fri, 23 Oct 2009 00:32:36 GMT Marc grammar I think that both "on accident" and "by accident" are improper. As others have stated, an adverb is required. I always use "accidentally". http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20064#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20064#Comments Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:48:09 GMT Jane grammar I live in SE Texas and hear children and many adults on the south side of 40 say ON accident almost exclusively! It drives me nuts as it is so wrong. Even my college educated sons say it. I have wondered if somehow the uneducated haveconverted "an accident" to "on accident". It is the sort of thing a child could hear and then say wrong. However, in my neck of the woods, on accident is RAMPANT. Of course, so is ignorance, and with that, a lack of seeing the printed word; hence they'd be more inclined to HEAR "an accident" and then SAY "on accident.". I am 56 and from the north. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20033#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=20033#Comments Tue, 20 Oct 2009 17:31:06 GMT Suzan grammar I have heard young children use "on accident" and was very interested to read about your findings. I had thought it was a regional dialect issue, but it makes perfect sense to me that this usage reflects the way young children subconsciously identify logical language patterns. Using "on purpose" falls into the same category of error as adding an "ed" to all verbs, even those which have irregular tense endings. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=19920#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=19920#Comments Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:15:38 GMT GregP grammar I've never heard anyone say "on accident" ever. Strange that it's so popular in a particular demographic (the demographic I actually belong to, by the way). Maybe it's different in Canada, but we have pretty much the same pop culture (any famous person in the States is famous in Canada even though the inverse isn't true). We certainly have the same popular TV shows for young people...! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=19785#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=19785#Comments Wed, 14 Oct 2009 20:37:01 GMT Sandra H. grammar Grammar Girl! I'm so glad I found your site! At age 53, I live in Birmingham, Alabama, where I was born. There’s no denying that I have a Southern accent. I've traveled the U.S. from the Southeast to the Midwest and lived briefly in Pittsburgh. My daughter is 22; son is 20. I am not from an affluent background, but from an early age my mother corrected my language usage at home and we were constantly corrected at school. I use “accidently”. I had never heard anyone say "on accident"; until (to my horror!) my daughter began using the term around the age of 9 or 10. We've argued about it for years. She also pronounces the word "orange" with a "ch" sound on the end. I’ve never been able to figure out where she picked it up from, either daycare or television, but I always cringe when I hear it. Oddly, my son doesn’t use the phrase, although I have encountered the usage of “on accident” among their friends of the same age. I’m glad to know I’m not alone in my preference. Thanks for your great site! http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=19397#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=19397#Comments Thu, 24 Sep 2009 05:40:43 GMT Katherine grammar I thought my 15-year-old daughter was the only one who said "on accident," and I have always wondered where she heard it. She has said it for years, despite my endless lectures on what she should say! Very interesting posts. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=18927#Comments http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx?commentid=18927#Comments Sun, 06 Sep 2009 03:00:29 GMT Thu, 19 Nov 2009 05:50:49 GMT http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/on-accident-versus-by-accident.aspx feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Managing Editor) feedback@quickanddirtytips.com (Webmaster) en-us