On accident- part of speech

Question

Is 'on' still a preposition in the phrase 'on accident', or 'on purpose'? I have noticed Americans say 'on accident', where I would say 'by accident'.

Wouldn't by be a substitute of sorts for through. I was married by a preacher. .. by wouldn't be a preposition there. I am all confused now :) — reabow, Oct 12 '15 at 21:08
@JohnLawler Do Americans really say I did it on accident? If so, I've never heard it. — WS2, Oct 12 '15 at 21:21
I've never heard "on accident" by Americans (being one myself). We say "by accident" such as "I knocked over the lamp by accident". Could it be a regional thing? — Kristina Lopez, Oct 12 '15 at 21:21
'by' *is* a preposition there. Have a look in a dictionary. https://www.google.co.uk/?gws_rd=ssl#q=by+definition — chasly - supports Monica, Oct 12 '15 at 21:22
@KristinaLopez - I think it is some kind of wordplay judging by this for example: You're Not Here on Accident. You're Here on Assignment! https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=evqcPvro62AC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22on+accident%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CC4Q6AEwAGoVChMIgbLPhO69yAIVRrIUCh2DsQ37#v=onepage&q=%22on%20accident%22&f=false — chasly - supports Monica, Oct 12 '15 at 21:23
I think it is broader than that. I thought it was something my wife did. Then found out it was more widespread — reabow, Oct 12 '15 at 21:27
In my experience, "by accident" is a lot more common than "on accident" in U.S. usage—but "accidentally" may be even more common than "by accident." — Sven Yargs, Oct 12 '15 at 21:35
A Google search of "on accident" returns a bunch of articles on the prepositional variation of this phrase. — DyingIsFun, Oct 12 '15 at 21:35
@JohnLawler This is the first time I have ever encountered on accident, and clearly that is the case with some Americans too. Would the fact that it exists in pockets, such as upstate New York, as Silenus has indicated, be the kind of thing that would be due to the fact that an area was originally settled by non-English-speaking communities e.g. Germans or Dutch? One area where your English strongly diverges from our variety is in the use of some prepositions. Has the influence of different European languages on the development of American English been studied and documented? — WS2, Oct 13 '15 at 15:54
On accident is part of my natively acquired AmE, though I was taught not to say it pretty early on. It's not wordplay, it's just a non-standard expression presumably formed by analogy to on purpose. FWIW, I grew up in Chicagoland, and I must have picked it up from other speakers there. — , Oct 13 '15 at 17:18
@Silenus I also heard this a lot when I was growing up in upstate NY - maybe it's a regionalism like pop / soda / coke etc.? — Heath, Oct 13 '15 at 22:27
@WS2, The idea that some regional variations are wholly or partly influenced by the immigrant languages of that area is an interesting one! I've never seen any particular cases made. Maybe you should write this up as a question! — DyingIsFun, Oct 13 '15 at 22:53
Related: Is it correct to say “on accident” instead of “by accident”?, Why do we say “On purpose” vs “By accident”? — herisson, Mar 04 '17 at 17:31

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 12 '15 at 21:30

2

Is on still a preposition in the phrase on accident, or on purpose? I have noticed Americans say on accident, where I would say by accident.

Yes, it is still a preposition. It's just the wrong preposition!

I can find one example in print, i.e.

You're Not Here on Accident. You're Here on Assignment!

However that seems to be a form of wordplay. Where have you seen or heard the phrase 'on accident' being used. Did you hear it in everyday conversation? In what kind of sentence?

answered Oct 12 '15 at 21:30

chasly - supports Monica

37,215

Definitely correct on the preposition front. I don't know that on is wrong so much as different usage. – reabow Oct 12 '15 at 21:34
@reabow: I think given the fact that happened on* accident* is so rare by comparison with happened by* accident*, it's not unreasonable to say the former is quite simply "wrong" if it's not part of a deliberate wordplay. – FumbleFingers Oct 13 '15 at 18:14
I think the premise is that if a group of native English speakers use a phrase, it is correct. This is even if it differs from standard English. I think you will find it widespread enough to meet this criteria. – reabow Oct 14 '15 at 04:14
@reabow - This is a perennial problem on this and other English language sites. There are two main schools of thought. Some of us believe that there is such a thing as 'correct' English and that it is to be found in dictionaries and grammar books. Others of our number think that correctness is determined by a sufficient population of speakers even if their speech does not conform to said reference books -- or any reference books at all. If you think it is widespread then that is fair enough. I think you need some evidence of that spread though. So far I haven't seen enough to convince me. – chasly - supports Monica Oct 14 '15 at 08:10
@chasely Now that I am alert to it, I have heard it a few times. It is definitely more of a hunch. Correct English is a form of hegemony in my view. It limits inclusion and diversity. Languages change and evolve, and we are powerless to stop them. (Much as I might rile inwardly when people say less when they meant fewer :) – reabow Oct 14 '15 at 08:24
Or say 'rile inwardly' when they mean 'rail'? ;-) [Sorry, I couldn't resist -- it's not a dig!] – chasly - supports Monica Oct 14 '15 at 08:31
They both work. rile verb
informal make (someone) annoyed or irritated.
– reabow Oct 14 '15 at 10:33
@FumbleFingers I can't work out what "quite simply wrong" in your comment means. You mean it's just a lie that some people say "on accident"? Or anyone who says that is not speaking English? Or is not a person you approve of? Or what? – Greg Lee Oct 15 '15 at 01:39
@Greg Lee: Given the parallel to on purpose, I guess it stands to reason there will be the occasional *on accident* and *by purpose, but I very much doubt there's any dialect/"linguistic community" where those versions would be considered "locally standard/normal usage". Google Books has just 16 instances of [it happened on accident*](https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&q=%22it+happened+on+accident%22#q=%22it+happened+on+accident%22&tbm=bks&start=10), compared to about 4,370 results for the standard version, so I don't think "wrong" is putting it too strongly. – FumbleFingers Oct 15 '15 at 12:09
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@FumbleFingers, I don't see there an answer to the question I asked you. Unless you mean that "quite simply wrong" means "is seldom written in books". Is that what you mean? Or "is locally standard"? ("On accident" sounds fine, to me, though I wouldn't use it in a formal setting. I consider my speech to be standard.) – Greg Lee Oct 15 '15 at 12:56
@reabow - Off-topic discussion: But 'rile' is transitive. You cannot rile without a direct object. Instead of, "I rile inwardly", you would have to say 'I rile myself inwardly'. It's just the same with its synonym 'to annoy'. You wouldn't presumably say, "I annoy inwardly" – chasly - supports Monica Oct 15 '15 at 14:31
@chaslyfromUK You are indeed correct. It is transitive, and there should be an object. I thought I could use it like stew, or boil which would be intransitive. – reabow Oct 15 '15 at 14:52

Greg Lee · Answer 2 · 2015-10-13T17:37:56.643

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I see in various comments people saying confidently that "on" is a preposition in "on accident" and "on purpose", but I don't see anyone giving evidence that this is actually true. How can you tell? Maybe it's a prefix, fulfilling a function similar to that of "-ally" in "accidentally" (which, after all, means "on accident").

The "accident" inside "accidentally" can't be preceded by an article or modified by an adjective, *"the-complete-accident ally", naturally, because you can't go inside a word and modify part of it, or put an article with part of it. So lets test "on accident": *"on the accident", *"on complete accident" are not acceptable. The "accident" inside "on accident" is not behaving as we would expect it to, if it were an independent word. That is evidence that "on accident" is not two independent words, even though it is written with an internal space in English orthography.

Notice that "by accident" is different, since "by complete accident" is fine, and similarly "by an accident of circumstances".

I will be looking forward to seeing some evidence from those of you who thought it was so obvious that the "on" in "on accident" and "on purpose" was a preposition.

edited Oct 13 '15 at 17:37

answered Oct 12 '15 at 22:30

Greg Lee

17,406

1

Uh, "on accident" isn't a standard American English expression (as the comments above strongly indicate). So your above arguments are just jaw flapping. – Hot Licks Oct 12 '15 at 22:57
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@HotLicks, your comment is not relevant to the question or my answer. – Greg Lee Oct 12 '15 at 23:48
Greg, the fact (if it be such) that ' on accident' is not actually a phrase in normal English is relevant to the question, and does invalidate your answer. – Tim Lymington Oct 13 '15 at 18:01
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@TimLymington, please explain to us how the fact that "on accident" does not occur in some standard dialects tells us whether "on" in the expression is a preposition. If you review the question, you will notice that it does not ask whether the expressions are standard. – Greg Lee Oct 13 '15 at 18:09
@GregLee - do you consider 'on demand' a similar case, bearing in mind that there's no "demandly" equivalent to "accidentally" and "purposely". – JHCL Oct 13 '15 at 22:03
@JHCL, I don't know about 'on demand'. I've just run through some tests to see whether the noun or putative preposition can be modified separately, and I get mixed results. – Greg Lee Oct 13 '15 at 23:14

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Aug 18 '16 at 09:01

My kids say "on accident" all the time. It drove me crazy at first, until I heard many of their friends using the same terminology.

A recent study by a bona fide linguist concludes that this is indeed generational:

A high-school English teacher asks which is correct: It happened on accident, or It happened by accident? A survey by linguist Leslie Barratt at Indiana State University indicates that most people born after 1990 use on accident, and weren’t even aware that by accident was proper, while those born before 1970 almost always say by accident.

You can hear the podcast at this website.

Another grammar site addressed this issue more than a decade ago, back in 1999:

I don't know where "on accident" comes from. My kids used to use this phrase all the time. "It's not my fault. It happened 'on accident'!" I thought it was a regional expression, something they picked up in southern New England, but it crops up all over. "By accident" is certainly the more common, standard expression. The preposition "on" seems to have imperialist tendencies, creeping into places — "standing on line, waiting on the bus" — where "in" and "for" were doing their job quite nicely.

This seems to be a case where the Ngram isn't going to support the younger generation, but, like it or hate it, the language appears to be evolving anyway – perhaps on accident.

On accident- part of speech

3 Answers3