How do you know when to use "Due to" as opposed to &quo

brianleeeee

Q:

How do you know when to use \"Due to\" as opposed to \"Because of\"?


A:
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Some grammarians would prefer that we never use \"due to\" at all, but the phrase has some useful and acceptable applications, as Burchfield points out: [li](payable to) \"ay Caesar what is due to Caesar.\" [/li][li](likely to) \"It's due to rain this afternoon.\" [/li][li](properly owed to) \"Much of what we own is due to my wife's investment decisions.\" [/li][li](following \"to be\") \"His obesity is due to his daily diet of butterscotch sundaes.\"[/li] Burchfield then points out that when \"due to\" is used to create a prepositional phrase in a verbless clause, many grammarians will object. [li]\"Due mainly to the engineers' incompetence, the roof began to sag dangerously.\" [/li][li]\"Due to the efforts of the English faculty, students' scores writing have begun to rise.\"[/li] Burchfield concludes that this use of due to seems to be forming \"part of the natural language of the twenty-first century.\" The phrase \"due to the fact that\" can often be replaced, to good effect, with \"because.\" Authority: The New Fowler's Modern English Usage edited by R.W. Burchfield. Clarendon Press: Oxford, England. 1996. Used with the permission of Oxford University Press. Examples our own.