I can remain silent no longer.
Oh good grief… there is no such thing as “on accident”.
It’s BY accident, BY accident, BY accident, FFS.
It stings all the more because Stephen is one of the more erudite writers on the Internet, and should know better.
It’s an intergenerational plot to make us old folks crazy. You thought it was just pronouns they wanted to mess with? Oh, no, it’s prepositions, too. Soon it will be verbs until the entire language becomes a newspeak torture and oldsters beg for sweet oblivion.
You left out nouns. Nouns have been ‘ameliorated’ for some time, so as to completely destroy the original meaning. For example, “expert” is now use to describe what we certified Old Phartes previously denominated as a retard, or, if in polite company, a moron. The detection of further examples is left to the student as an exercise.
And while we are on the subject, it also irritates me (not aggravates, by the way) when I hear Brits say “different to” when they mean “different from.” What kind of prepositional nonsense is that? That’s not the only thing they get exactly backwards, but it’s the worst one by far.
Thank you for that. I was tempted to post something the like on Instapundit, but was not in a mood to start a flame war with Stephen.
Hopefully it’s just a type and he meant “an accident”.
To understand how wrong “on accident” sounds, ask if something can happen “by purpose”.
We all know that English isn’t really a language, it’s three languages in a horse costume pretending to be a giraffe, but for fuck’s sake, use it properly.
Why wasn’t I consulted when “pled” became “pleaded”?
It grates on my nerves like hearing “drown-ded”.
And if you think the DA not dropping charges in time was an accident, I have a bridge to sell.
Ha! Joey Garza as a corrupt commie DA. How appropriate. “I hate communist behavior in a man. I won’t tolerate it!”