I disagree, I think people use it to emphasize the possibility that it was accidental. Without that phrase, such assertions tend to be interpreted with implici

I disagree, I think people use it to emphasize the possibility that it was accidental. Without that phrase, such assertions tend to be interpreted with implicit "deliberately". > neutral speech Is not ideal or practical in the real world. It's a nice idea, but to best facilitate understanding we should recognize the realities (unfortunate or misguided as they may be) of how we actually use language. (If you really want to imply "deliberate", but want plausible deniability, then you just leave out the phrase entirely. If you don't say "accidentally or deliberately", people will infer "deliberately", but you never actually said that word and therefore you have deniability.)