On Accident vs. By Accident (Grammar Ninjas Only Please)

Maybe citified New Yorkers. I’ve never heard it upstate.

[quote=“jdsmith”]

Maybe citified New Yorkers. I’ve never heard it upstate.[/quote]

youse talk diffrent up there :stuck_out_tongue:

I’m from one of the last out posts of the British Empire…never heard of “on accident.”

[quote=“miltownkid”]So I got corrected today for saying “on accident” (one of my, I’m sure, many terms from the old school.) It appears that “on accident” is grammatically incorrect, but the best answer I’ve been able to find while searching Google is that it’s incorrect just because it’s incorrect.

So what is the difference between ‘by’ and ‘on’ that makes one right and one wrong?[/quote]
You’ve mixed up ‘by accident’ and ‘on purpose.’

Quick OED search suggests it’s been “by accident” since 1483:

Same entry shows no hits for “on accident.” But come to think of it I think I may’ve used an expression like that as a kid.

New Yorkers use “on” in all kinds of funny nonstandard ways, though, like the expression “on line” – the preposition “in” is clearly preferable there, because there is no line upon which one is standing; instead the group of people standing in an ordered fashion makes up a line of people, which means that any individual in the line is “in line” the same way s/he might be “in” a crowd: s/he’s a component of the group.

I mention that not
just
as a rant but because the prepositions that get used usually point to some kind of comprehensible frame, even if their use is idiomatic today. “By accident” would imply a means or manner for which something happens which is outside the control of the speaker, just like “by train” (where the speaker does not move the train, as opposed to “on foot” where the speaker has a controlled conscious action), “by the way” (where the speaker cannot control what occurs/occurred during the course of events), etc. Even in the counterexamples, eg “I will solve that problem by punching you in the face,” the sense is more passive than without the “by.” It’s like a kind of incidental instrumentality.
Maybe I’m smoking crack here.

[About that “by train” also – think about it: if you say “I traveled to Boston by car,” the implication is that you aren’t driving, that you’re being taken by a hired driver or something. If you’re actually in control of the situation, you would almost certainly say “I drove to Boston.”]

“On” constructions, however, feel kinda rarer, and seem to have more of a sense of “with.” The only example that really comes to mind right now is “on life”, meaning “alive”…

Anyway, I’d need some corpus research to really back this up.

Lucky for me I’m a miltownkid :wink:

But… Because the person kept bugging me about it, I ended up calling my mom and asking her what she’d say and she went with “on accident” and then started telling me the difference between on and by.

Where I’m come from, saying “by accident” my get you a beat down on purpose. “By accident” actually sounds strange to me. I might start using it in writing, but I’m not sure how easily I’ll change my speech.

On accident? Where are you people from? I have heard it two times in my life. Once I overheard it in a restuarant in Macao (actually the folks were speaking that strange dialect of Macanese/Cantonese), but I’m pretty sure that’s what was said. The other time was right here on Forumosa in this thread.

New York City? Could somebody give me a good, verifiable reference that proves that New Yorkers even speak English, let alone know how to use “on accident” correctly. I sho’ don’t.

Just funnin’, Don’t get yer friggin’ hackles up :smiley:

Lucky for me I’m a miltownkid :wink:

But… Because the person kept bugging me about it, I ended up calling my mom and asking her what she’d say and she went with “on accident” and then started telling me the difference between on and by.

[/quote]
But is your mom a native speaker of English? Or the child of immigrants who didn’t speak English as a native language?
Sometimes odd little mistakes or idiosyncracies sneak into a native speaker’s English, and it’s because that’s what our German grandmother said, or our Croatian uncle, or whatever.
I myself use the word “gamp” for “umbrella,” but a lot of people back home who, like me, are native speakers of English, have never heard of it. I use it because that’s what my mom calls it, and she uses it because that’s what her mother called it.

Yep. Nope.

I think it may be a Miltown thang. Not only have I asked her, I’ve asked other Miltown brethren and received the same answer.

I found it strange that someone actually found it strange. “By Accident” sounds strange to me (but it’s starting to grow on me.)

As an Ohioan by the Ryder Method (as in loaded up the truck and moved north), I have heard of and said (perhaps?) “on accident” although “by accident” is more automatic to me.