Query: "on accident"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Though, as I've said, what isn't unlearned eventually becomes the English of Tomorrow.

Who do you suppose started dropping all those Old English case endings ?  Grownups ?

And little Aethelstan was so *cute* when he did it !

JL

Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Laurence Horn
Subject: Re: Query: "on accident"
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>I don't recall ever hearing this in my life, even from young children.

At least one of my children went through a brief "on accident" stage
(not to mention more prolonged and messier "accident" stages ;-)
I assume it's a blend, as noted--and I also recall an earlier thread
here knocking this about. I wonder if there's a compendium somewhere
of "childhoodese", including (along with "on accident") e.g. "no
fair", and probably many other examples. I'm not talking child
language here as much as constructions (and maybe metathetic
pronunciations like "pasghetti") occurring in children's English that
are gradually unlearned by adolescence. Pre-teen lingo?

L

>I find it in a list of "common errors in Engish usage" on the Web; I
>wouldn't have thought it would have been common enough to make the list.
>
>I guess I've lived a sheltered life.
>
>-- Doug Wilson

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