Is there a difference in tone or meaning between accidentally and inadvertently? I feel like accidentally means they did something that was a bad thing.
Japanese monks and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years. They accidentallyIn doing so they built the world’s longest climate dataset
For what it’s worth, those examples for ‘accident’ are being used as euphemisms to soften the blow of the intended message, and you can’t soften the blow without using soft words.
Car accidents have noun-ified the word a bit, though, so I do see where you’re coming from.
Is there a difference in tone or meaning between accidentally and inadvertently? I feel like accidentally means they did something that was a bad thing.
I agree it seems a strange choice of words.
Something like that seems more straightforward.
Accidents don’t have to be bad? Accident means just “not on purpose” it has no connotation either way
Right. When someone is accused of something, and they say “But it was an accident!”, that’s exactly what it means.
But if you shit yourself and say “I had an accident.”, that’s not what it means. Or you call your parents and say, “I was in an accident.”
It has different connotations and in this case I’m conflicted, and therefore I would’ve chosen a different word.
I’m not reading any negative connotation at all.
For what it’s worth, those examples for ‘accident’ are being used as euphemisms to soften the blow of the intended message, and you can’t soften the blow without using soft words.
Car accidents have noun-ified the word a bit, though, so I do see where you’re coming from.
Surely “car accidents” aren’t the only way it’s been “noun-ified”?
Even the Latin form would mean “misfortune”.
I’m sorry, I don’t speak Latin.
You… don’t need to be able to in order to follow along here. I provided an image as well. 👍
Mate, I’m familiar with the history of the word. I don’t read any negative connotations in the form OP is using.
Alright, mate.
Then I don’t understand what you’re argument is. You know the connotation people have, you know the origins of the word… 🤷♂️