2021-04-05 ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – accident & mishap

Revision A

2021-04-05

ศัพท์ น่าสับสน ชุด – A – accident & mishap

แนะนำการใช้ ตามที่ส่วนใหญ่ใช้ แต่ละท้องถิ่น

ความหมาย อาจผันแปร ตาม ตำแหน่ง/หน้าที่ ในประโยค

Dictionary.com

ออกเสียง accident = ‘AK-si-duhnt’

ออกเสียง mishap = ‘MIS-hap’ or ‘mis-HAP’

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

FrequentlyAsked Questions About accident

What is the difference between accidental and incidental?

Accidental describes what was not planned or intended.

It means "happeningby accident" or "happening asan accident,"

as in "an accidentaldiscovery" and "an accidental injury."

Incidental typically means "happening as a minor part

or result of something else,"

as in "a chapter that is incidental to the novel's plot."

For more information read the full article.

Do you say 'on accident' or 'by accident'?

While both "by accident" and "on accident" are used,

"by accident" is far more common.

What does 'accident waiting to happen' mean?

The phrase"an accident waiting to happen"

refers to a person or thing that is dangerous or unsafe.

For example, a very clumsy person and a rickety ladder

might bothbe referred to as "an accident waiting to happen."

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Usage Notes

'Accidental' vs. 'Incidental'

A word's meaning is no accident. Or is it?

What to Know

Accidental and incidental can both

mean "somethinghappening by chance,"

but usage suggests that "accidental"

also implies an element of carelessness or inattention

while "incidental" implies

the occurrence would have happened with or without attention orcare.

The words accident and incident are often confused,

and for good reason.

They have intersecting histories,

both stemming fromthe same ultimate Latin root, cadere,

meaning “to fall," and their Latin antecedents had similar meanings:

accidere meant, among other things, “to fall down” and “to happen” and incidere meant “to fall into” and (also) “to happen.”

Plus, they kind of sound alike.

Shared Origins of Accidental and Incidental

Both accident and incident were formed

from the present participles of the Latin verbs

(they could be roughly translated as “accidenting” and “incidenting”),

which became nouns in French before crossing into English in the 14th century.

The Germanic equivalent to “accidenting” would be befalling,

which gives us some perspective on how to understand

the original meaning of accident:

the verb befall is defined as “to happen especially as if by fate,”

and the obsolete noun befall is defined in the Oxford English Dictionary as “a case, circumstance, incident, accident.”

The oldest meaningsof accident are “a chance event”

or “something that was unforeseen and unplanned”

—which could also be described as “a happening” or “a befalling.”

Accident and incident share

the ideaof a sudden and unpleasant occurrence,

the formerusually referring

directlyto something that causes damage or injury,

the latter referringto

a specific momentor instance of unpleasantness or unlawfulness:

a traffic accident

isolated incidents were reported

Separate Meanings

The words next go their separate ways.

Incident becomes more abstract in the language of diplomacy,

referring tosomething likely to have diplomatic consequences:

a border incident

Accident has a distinct abstract sense

referring to any fortuitous

or nonessential property, fact,or circumstance:

an accident of birth

Among its more concrete set of meanings

is the all-too-concrete euphemistic

use when referring to the acts of babies and pets:

The puppy had an accident on the floor.

Subtle Differences

Their related adjectives pretty much stayin their lanes:

accidental refers to something happening by chance

(chance another word that descends from cadere),

but also, sometimes implying inattention or carelessness:

an accidental discovery

the timing was accidental

an accidental fire

Incidental means “minor”

or, when it means “by chance” or “without intention or calculation,”

the idea of carelessness is absent.

(Incident is also sometimes used as an adjective in technical or legal contexts.)

incidental expenses

played an incidental role

an incidental finding

Language sometimes evolves in unpredictable and illogical ways.

The parallel noun forms incidence and accidence

have very imbalanced comparative usage,

with incidence a fairly common word

meaning “an occurrence or rate of occurrence”

(as in “a high incidence of crime”)

and accidence a rare one,

referring onlyto “a part of grammar that deals with inflections.”

So, it might be said that

all those irregular verb tensesthat require memorization

when studying a new language are the “unforeseenor unplanned”

changes in a language's course

—accidents along the way in the history of a language.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Choose the Right Synonym for mishap

MISFORTUNE, MISCHANCE, ADVERSITY, MISHAP

mean adverse fortune or an instance of this.

MISFORTUNE may apply to either the incident or conjunction of eventsthat is the cause of an unhappy change of fortune orto the ensuing state of distress.

never lost hope even in the depths of misfortune

MISCHANCE applies especially to a situation involving no more than slight inconvenience or minor annoyance.

took the wrong road by mischance

ADVERSITY applies to a state of grave or persistent misfortune.

had never experienced great adversity

MISHAP applies to an often trivial instance of bad luck.

the usual mishaps of a family vacation

Merriam-Webster Dictionary

Accident

Definition: any fortuitous or nonessential property, fact, or circumstance

Accident had two meanings in the late 14th century;

one of these was closely related to the sense

in which it is often found today

(“an unforeseen unplanned eventor condition”),

and the other is rarely encountered outside of philosophy classes.

The sense of accident defined above,

which deals with attributes,

is often found in discussions of Aristotelian thought,

as Aristotle used the Greek forerunner of the word in his Metaphysics.

It makes the accidents of Bread and Wine Exist without a subject; that is, there is whiteness and there is moisture, but there is nothing Either white or moist....
—A Dissuasive from Popery Sent in a Letter from A.B. to C.D., 1681

Dictionary of Problem Words in English

accident & mishap

An accident is an event that occurswithout apparent plan.

Such a chance, undesigned occurrence may be fortunate

(a lucky accident that we saw each other),

unfortunate(a fatal accident), or neutral (the accident of birth).

A mishap is an unfortunate accident.

Breaking a shoelace when in a hurry is a mishap.

A disaster, catastrophe, or calamity cannot be called a mishap,

a word reserved for a misadventure, mischance, or misfortune.

A mishap might be referred to as a minor accident.