On 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!

Interesting, and very much an American thing - never heard anyone say 'on accident' here in the UK.

The computer programmer in me says both are valid:

"on accident" is a pre-prepared behavior that will be employed when an accident occurs in the future.

"by accident" is metadata accompanying an event, reporting the author or agent that created the event.

    ON ACCIDENT GOTO EMERGENCYROOM

Whoa, what? You learn something new everyday on here. I have never heard anyone in the US say "on accident."

Does "on accident" even make sense? The preposition "on" in this case implies intent, so who is causing accidents on purpose? And if you are, then it's not really an accident, it's sabotage.

Just 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.

Perhaps it's just newspeak, catering for the difference between accidents and deliberate "accidents".

Perhaps it evolved from "accidentally on purpose", which was a pretty 90's expression.

Here's another one: In New Zealand they say "they are different to us" instead of the American "they are different from us". Always trips me up. Arbitrary I suppose; any preposition will do because the comparison is in thought-space not physical space.

I'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.

I was going to comment "accidentally" but first google result says: Accidently vs. Accidentally? Dang you english.

A thought I had while reading: Neal (the author) reports that Barrat found "on purpose" to be used "to the near exclusion of by accident" by "speakers born after 1995". However, Neal then goes on to ask:

> why did the new form suddenly edge out the old in the mid-1990s?

Based on the fact that the years listed in the first section were the birth-years of the speakers, I would guess that the main cultural transition actually took place around 2000-2005, when speakers born after 1995 would be developing their dialects.

I suppose it could be argued that the shift must have happened earlier based on the mixed usage among speakers born as early as 1970, but at any rate, the complete takeover seems to have happened around the millennium change.

An interesting companion would be J.L.Austin's "A Plea for Excuses", where he contrasts "by mistake" and "by accident".

(Google books link, but the PDF is available widely)

https://books.google.no/books?id=CPKHKvge3Z4C&lpg=PA379&ots=...

Language evolves. Sounds like "on accident" is winning, and it'll probably take over completely in another decade or two.

But it'll always sound wrong to me.

I had an interesting similar experience, related to pronunciation of the phrase "en route". I pronounce it the way you'd say it in French ("on route" without the "n" sound). He misheard me as saying "on route" and tried to correct me to something that sounded more like "in route" pronouncing the "en" the way you would in English.

I was born in the first half of the 80s and the only person I've ever known to use "on accident" is my sister born towards the end of the eighties. It sounds stupid and myself and my family have always corrected her. I wasn't aware this was some sort of societal movement.

I've always said "accidentally", rather than "by accident". To my ear, "by accident" sounds almost as archaic as "by your leave". Maybe "on accident" comes from "on [making an] accident".

"On" suggests that there is intention involved. "By" suggests passivity.

I never hear "on accident" here in Australia.

Could exposure to the internet and social networking have any bearing on this?

I was born in January 1995, and "on accident" sounds bizarre to me.

"traffic collision"

Seconded. I've never heard this in the UK from people of any age.

I wonder if it has anything to do with the way "an" sounds when spoken with an American accent. A mishearing and then repetition of "an accident" seems much more plausible to me than confusion with "on purpose".

No, but we have a similar one - lend and borrow have become interchangeable. "Can you borrow me an X" or "I lended (not even word AFAIK) it from him" is one I hear often from younger folks.

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.)

I never heard or read it in the US until recently (15 years-ish).

Me either. Although I'm in the "Before around 1970" group, so maybe I'm self-selecting my experience based on my similar-age peer group.

Neither have I. Sounds very strange to my ears.