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Japanese monks and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years. They accidentally built the world's longest climate dataset (cdn.bsky.app)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/mildlyinteresting@lemmy.world
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[–] 137 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (47 children)

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.

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  • [–] 48 points 7 months ago (5 children)

    I agree it seems a strange choice of words.

    Japanese monks and emperors kept meticulous records of cherry blossom festivals for 1,200 years. They accidentally In doing so they built the world's longest climate dataset

    Something like that seems more straightforward.

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  • [–] 36 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    I think “inadvertently” fits in that it isn’t what they were intending to do.

    “Accidentally” feels sorta judgy.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    I think a journalist might choose the word 'unintentionally'; inadvertently is a bit clunky, it lacks a bit of music, and it gives me a sense of slapstick comedy. This sentence, for instance, "Having inadvertently caused the death of her son," sounds to me like the son died as a result of some Pink Panther bit.

    I don't think 'accidentally' here needs to feel judgy per se, but it is hard to imagine an English major choosing it.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Yeah I like “unintentionally” better as well.

    Why do I feel like we are making AI better by having this conversation?

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  • [–] 14 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Hmm not necessarily, accidentally has no negative implication unlike accident usually has. In this particular case the meaning of accidentally is synonym with unexpectedly or by chance.

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  • [–] 23 points 7 months ago (4 children)

    Mr Bob Ross would like a word...
    I agree with you on inadvertently, but accident, if I'm not mistaken would generally considered something where you do not inherently attribute blame. At least thats what I recall being justification for making the change in UK in calling traffic 'incidents' incidents instead of accidents several years back. Dunno if it stuck though.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago

    Interesting. Although I still maintain that accident bears a negative connotation, even though blame isn't necessarily a factor. As if the outcome was a negative thing, rather than a positive, as in this case.

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  • [–] 8 points 7 months ago (19 children)

    Accidents don’t have to be bad? Accident means just “not on purpose” it has no connotation either way

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (18 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 3 points 7 months ago (16 children)

    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.

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  • [–] 2 points 7 months ago (15 children)

    Surely "car accidents" aren't the only way it's been "noun-ified"?

    Even the Latin form would mean "misfortune".

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (14 children)

    I'm sorry, I don't speak Latin.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (13 children)

    You... don't need to be able to in order to follow along here. I provided an image as well. 👍

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (12 children)

    Mate, I'm familiar with the history of the word. I don't read any negative connotations in the form OP is using.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (11 children)

    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... 🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (10 children)

    Uh, my argument is that my eyes see no devils yonder. If you'd like to know why, I guess, have a look at 1-a.

    I should have pulled up a dictionary to begin with, honestly. I just thought I was arguing from a more colloquial standpoint. Which I would still defend; I love slang.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (9 children)

    Are we ignoring 1-b?

    happening without intent or through carelessness and often with unfortunate results

    🤷‍♂️

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago (8 children)

    I mean, I was hoping to, yeah.
    I don't much care about 2 or 3 either.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (7 children)

    So you're making some strange argument for some reason, and providing evidence to support your claims that actually show evidence to support my claims, but you want me to ignore that part.

    Let's wrap this up shall we. 🙄

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (6 children)

    The strange argument is that they meant to use definition 1-a, and they did. It is a perfectly normal use of the word.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (5 children)

    And I'm saying 1-b is so strongly universal in English speaking countries that it should probably swap places with 1-a. Arguing against this feels pretty nitpicky to be honest. Look at the ratio of people who agree with the top level comment, e.g. 🤷‍♂️

    I'll concede your argument might not be "strange"—that was a poor choice of word—but you are openly ignoring counter arguments which feels strange. And saying things like "I don't speak Latin" out of nowhere in the middle of argumentation, like that's a counter argument.

    This whole correspondence just feels like I'm talking to a character from Alice in Wonderland. 🫪

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago (4 children)

    What would swapping 1-a and 1-b's places do? I'm not ignoring 1-b because it's lower in rank or something. In the context of the given sentence, it just doesn't apply.

    I'll share an anecdote, okay. This is an excerpt from Dickens' Bleak House, the beginning of chapter 1:

    Implacable November weather. As much mud in the streets, as if the waters had but newly retired from the face of the earth, and it would not be wonderful to meet a Megalosaurus, forty feet long or so, waddling like an elephantine lizard up Holborn Hill.

    The word 'wonderful' there is not being used to mean 'good' or 'exciting', it's leaning on an archaic definition that means 'strange'. It might have positive connotations; I sort of feel like it does. It's kind of hard to understand, though, unless you have that piece of information.

    When I learned this information, let's say about a month ago, my initial thoughts were "Oh wow. I didn't know wonderful could mean that. That's cool. I learned something." And now, Bleak House, which is before my time, will be slightly less challenging to read. I'm sure I won't, but it will be.

    I'm not being nitpicky for no reason, I'm arguing in favor of literacy. Knowing that 'accidental' can be used in ways you don't expect should be interesting, and not just flatly refused.

    Further, I don't see people who agree that the word is used incorrectly, I see people who are mildly confused by it. All of them understand what's being said just fine. And all I'm saying is that they don't need to be confused.

    Out of curiosity, how do you feel about the word 'literally'? About how it's often used as an intensifier now and has lost some of its significance as an antonym to figurative. I'll share my answer after yours.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (3 children)

    All that is fine and dandy, just like "awesome" and other examples, but when there are more descriptive words, I still think it's better to use them, also in favor of literacy. Why stamp everything with "accident" when you can use better words from a more expansive vocabulary? These are journalist writers ffs. They do this for a living. I'm merely disappointed. [Edit: huh. I guess there's no article here. 😳 Never mind about expectations, I suppose.]

    I agree with you that you should respect all meanings of a word but sometimes it becomes ambiguous, as in this case (1-b is, too, applicable), and sometimes there are just more descriptive, seemingly forgotten words to choose from, also as in this case.

    I'm also on your side regarding "literally", from the tail end of your comment. I don't use it as an intensifier. It's stupid. But I reluctantly accept that language is malleable.

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  • [–] 0 points 7 months ago* (2 children)

    I don't know what you mean by more descriptive. The only meanings here that are necessary are "by chance" and "unexpected".

    The word 'uninentional' would convey a similar meaning, it'd be fine, but there are situations out there where it doesn't work.

    "Their meeting was entirely unintentional."

    By whose intent? If we're speaking from the perspective of fate, then this is actually a bad choice.

    "Their meeting was entirely inadvertent."

    I'm... not sure what this would even mean. I would probably assume this came from a 17-year-old who got their hands on a thesaurus.

    "Their meeting was entirely by chance."

    This obviously works. I think it lacks a bit of whimsy. Maybe it trades one whimsy for another. Accidental means "by chance," though, you'd only be trading the word for its definition.

    but sometimes it becomes ambiguous, as in this case (1-b is, too, applicable),

    1-b is not applicable. The outcome of this accident is a fortunate one, so a misfortunate interpretation would be incorrect. I mean, this is why it feels odd to you, is it not?

    I can only assume that what happened is you read the sentence and thought it would end "They accidentally shit their pants," or something, and were surprised it didn't. That didn't happen to me. And even if it had, I could have recovered.

    I'm also on your side regarding "literally" [...] I don't use it as an intensifier. It's stupid.

    Eh heh~ This is not the side that I'm on.

    Knowing different sides of a word, or in this case adding new ones, allows you to affect your speech in different ways to say different things about yourself. If you're being formal, then you wouldn't use the intensifier variant of literally, or at least you would be more precise about it, but if you wanted to seem more street, or maybe youthful, then literally might be a great choice. Think about the power this gives you when writing dialogue for characters, or when speaking to certain demographics.

    In my view, 'literally' getting another definition only increases the number of toys in my toybox.

    I did say earlier that I defend slang.

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (2 children)

    Aww, shit. Now there's record all over the floor... I'll go get the data bin...

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  • [–] 7 points 7 months ago (1 child)

    Was going to say this myself and then saw your comment. Totally agree. 'Accidently' practically implies that the record keeping itself only happened because some pencils happened to fall on paper. They did exactly what they intended to and used it for their own purpose. It just turned out to have a different purpose, too.

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