Thanks for the explanation. 

But I was referring to the spelling of access. We use British English in OSM, and the key is used 24,101,406 times (with two s's) compared to 3 times (with one s). 

But in general, access does not describe whether a connection exists, but whether a connection can be used. Surprisingly, a colleague asked me about the topic of wooden islands on a lake. In a non-English translation of the OSM Wiki, I found a note that man_made=pier can also be used for (non-natural) islands without a connection to land.