Excellent use of language.

I did. Quite a few. Even taught a couple.

Here’s the thing. You aren’t entirely wrong.

Language can be studied and taught in two distinct ways.

There’s prescriptive language, which teaches, “this is how language should be used”.

And there’s descriptive language, which teaches, “this is how language is actually used”.

You are clearly leaning into the latter there, and that is fine. However, it does miss the point that for effective and articulate communication, rules are pretty useful.

Think of it like a programming language where you have to be very specific around syntax to get the exact thing you want.

Obviously, spoken and written English is far more forgiving. In fact we can say something really specific without saying it at all due to cultural and situational inference.

But prescriptive English forms a baseline for effective communication across what should be the broadest scope of a population.

Anyway, “on accident” is an Americanism. Thought to exist because of a conflation of “on purpose”. If anything this conflation is an attempt to enforce a rule, to make language more prescriptive than allowing for the differences in “by” and “on”.

Now, let’s deal with that jibe in your comment that I never took English class.

Class.

You talk about the working class. Then you talk about prescriptive language and being all cool with that. Then you seek to belittle me by undermining my education. You say that the correct way of speaking is for posh people yet you criticise my understanding of language.

That would make you a hypocrite, wouldn’t it?

Nope.