• Victor@lemmy.world
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    1 month ago

    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.

    • Contentedness@lemmy.nz
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      1 month ago

      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.

      • billwashere@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

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

        “Accidentally” feels sorta judgy.

    • xploit@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      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.