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.
this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2026
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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.
I think “inadvertently” fits in that it isn’t what they were intending to do.
“Accidentally” feels sorta judgy.
Yeah. “It was an accident” sounds like pleading, excusing. “I inadvertently…” sounds like an explanation of the facts. imo
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.
Yeah I like “unintentionally” better as well.
Why do I feel like we are making AI better by having this conversation?
AI will do whatever we do (on average) because that's what it's built to. Making mistakes on purpose may be a useful way of signaling our humanity at some point, but it's an ever-moving target.
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.
UK in calling traffic ‘incidents’ incidents instead of accidents several years back. Dunno if it stuck though.
Wait is that real? I thought it was just a joke when it was said in Hot Fuzz
tbf it was played straight in Hot Fuzz, Sgt. Angel was right and there was somebody who caused it.
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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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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They accidentally became climate change wackos supporting a communist agenda to make everyone gay and push taxes supporting public transportation.
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 had an inadvertent!
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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Aww, shit. Now there's record all over the floor... I'll go get the data bin...
You got the statistimop there as well? (I'm reaching...)
Love the user name, by the way. 👌
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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.
That's an even better way of looking at it, to avoid "accidentally". Great point!
Incidentally would be more accurate perhaps.
I looked up the definitions of incidentally and inadvertently, and inadvertently is a better fit IMO.
I salute you. Few are those who take the time to find appropriate word for the meaning.
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I agree, but I think here "accidentally" is used in an ironic manner because this is of course not actually a bad thing.
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"Kill them all. Steal their data." - MAGA
Is that dataset up anywhere as a CSV?
I'd really love to build a lesson around it!
Well, glaciers keep the longest climate datasets, it's just in a format that takes some work to translate.
citation for claim that it's the longest-dated climate dataset?
It's not the longest climate dataset, but it may be the longest directly recorded by humans. All of these types of data are climate proxies (alternate indicators we can use to gain information about historic climates), the longest of which are ice core measurements.
Idk, egyptian priests kept records of the groundwater levels to predict the nile flood times to keep the peasants in check, and that could count as a climate dataset that far predates and is longer than this.
Do floods correlate well with the climate there, or are they affected by something else, too? If they are not much affected, then that could be a dataset indeed
Indeed they could, any core sample of the earth could, and long has, been a record of climatic conditions.
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So temperatures are going down soon, right? RIGHT?
You know, it's the weather. Temperature goes up. Temperature goes down. EZPZ
Just what I needed to hear. I would have rejected any other answer anyway. So I can happily go back to sleep now.
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Link to a source would be nice.
Seems interesting, but without a source it's just noise.
John Bistline, whose name appears on the bottom right, posted this chart to Twitter.
There's a pretty similar data series charted at ourworldindata.
Looks like FT to me. Also there are citations in the fine prints.
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