I was going to comment "accidentally" but first google result says: Accidently vs. Accidentally?
Dang you english.
“On Accident” or “By Accident”?
11–20 of 65 posts
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#12Interesting, and very much an American thing - never heard anyone say 'on accident' here in the UK.
Neither have I. Sounds very strange to my ears.
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#13Interesting, and very much an American thing - never heard anyone say 'on accident' here in the UK.
I wouldn't usually just throw out a data point but since so many people here are saying they haven't heard it in the UK, I'm in the UK and certainly do hear "on accident" occasionally and have used it myself - it is less common though (An exclamation of "it was on accident!" is the most natural use I can think of - which fits with the idea it came via "on purpose"). Disclaimer: I am somewhat into youth culture and use a lot of slang in everyday speech.
(So I just asked my employees - who are somewhat younger than me. They had heard of it, claimed not to use it, and believed it was poorly educated people with a poor grasp of English who used it in their experience.)
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#14Interesting, and very much an American thing - never heard anyone say 'on accident' here in the UK.
I never heard or read it in the US until recently (15 years-ish).
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#15Interesting, and very much an American thing - never heard anyone say 'on accident' here in the UK.
I wouldn't usually just throw out a data point but since so many people here are saying they haven't heard it in the UK, I'm in the UK and certainly do hear "on accident" occasionally and have used it myself - it is less common though (An exclamation of "it was on accident!" is the most natural use I can think of - which fits with the idea it came via "on purpose"). Disclaimer: I am somewhat into youth culture and us…
Are you sure, it's not "It was an accident" ?
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#16On accident is one of those American sayings that sounds weird to my English ears. Like poop. where did the second p come from???
That said, I think our dialects are merging, (well more likely British English is becoming Americanised, but you guys make all the tv, so that's to be expected), for example, when I was younger no one said "ass", it was always "arse", but nowadays it's nearly always "ass"; except for the older generations.
But, we have the same problem within the UK, in the north, we have three meals, breakfast, dinner and tea. In the south they have breakfast, lunch and dinner. It can be very confusing, especially in films when someone invites someone round for tea, but there's no food and it's 1pm!
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#17On accident is one of those American sayings that sounds weird to my English ears. Like poop. where did the second p come from??? That said, I think our dialects are merging, (well more likely British English is becoming Americanised, but you guys make all the tv, so that's to be expected), for example, when I was younger no one said "ass", it was always "arse", but nowadays it's nearly always "ass"; except for the o…
Funny, before I read the article I thought that "on accident" must be some British English bastardization since it sounds so weird to my American ears. But I was born in the late 70's and haven't lived in the US since 2000, so maybe that explains it.
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#18I'm not a native English speaker, but I don't think I have ever seen "on accident" used on the Internet. Do people really say "I did this on accident"? It just sounds wrong.
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#19Just goes to show the arbitrariness of prepositions associated with verbs. It's one of the hardest things to learn as a foreign language.
I do recall amusement when learning German, attempting to say I travelled 'on' the bus, only for it to literally mean on the roof of the bus.
Re: “On Accident” or “By Accident”?
#20"On" suggests that there is intention involved. "By" suggests passivity.