Due to how to use

How to use ‘both due to’ in a sentence? [closed]

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I’m a non-native speaker and I’m having trouble using both due to in a sentence.

I want to describe a certain thing, let’s say ‘A’, is a result of two processes, ‘B’ and ‘C’.

I remembered a friend of mine who is a native English speaker advising me to use ‘both due to’, but I can’t remember exactly how.

3 Answers 3

The given sentence is not a suitable example. Instead, consider:

We notice that A and B are both caused by X. Therefore, they are both due to X.

An alternate situation is where

His failure is both due to his lack of preparation as well his poor health. However, this is a less preferred construction and may be considered awkward.

«X is due to Y» means that Y caused X. You’ve got it the wrong way round.
You could say «A is due to both B and C», but then that could be interpreted as either B or C on its own could result in A.
So you may be best to say something like, «A is due to a combination of B and C», to avoid ambiguity.

Due to is understood as caused by.

Back in the dark ages of the 1960s we were taught to distinguish between necessary and sufficient causes.

If B and C are each, independently, sufficient causes of A, this may be expressed most succinctly by

A may be due to either B or C.

The may be is not strictly necessary; but it is to my mind preferable to is in order to avoid misunderstanding.

If B and C are both necessary causes of A but neither is a sufficient cause in the absence of the other, the use with both is accurate but, again, may be misunderstood; it should be qualified with an additional phrase (here bracketed—another phrase may suit the particular context better):

A is due to both B and C [operating together].

It gets more complicated if a third cause, necessary or sufficient, is involved.

Due To Grammar

How to Use Due To Correctly

Other Conditions to Use Due To

There are several ways to describe a cause and effect relationship in the English language, include using the words “since,” “due to,” “because,” because of,” “result of,” “caused by”, etc. So, what are the differences of these phrases and how to use each phrase correctly? Here we will specifically discuss the “due to” grammar rules and how to use it correctly.

How to Use Due To Correctly

Before getting to know grammar rules of “due to”, we must first know what kind of speech it is. “Due to” is an adjective and modifies a noun, pronoun or noun phrase. Therefore, according to the grammar rules, “due to” can only be used to modify nouns, pronouns and noun phrases. Below are three examples of using “due to.”

1. The road closure was due to an accident.

2. The voting period extension was due to malfunctioning voting machines.

3. The broken basket was due to carrying too many eggs.

One easy shortcut to knowing the proper “due to” grammar usage is to substitute it with the words “caused by.” If “due to” cannot be substituted by “caused by,” then “due to” is being improperly used. For example:

1. The wet blanket was due to the sprinkler turning on.

=The wet blanket was caused by the sprinkler turning on.

2. The good grade was due to extra studying.

=The good grade was caused by extra studying.

3. The lost battle was due to interference by the king in pre-battle planning.

=The lost battle was caused by interference by the king in pre-battle planning.

Due to or Because of?

Based on this shortcut, “due to” is being properly used if “caused by” can be properly substituted. Now, let’s see one more example:

1. The game was lost due to bad officiating.

—The game was lost caused by bad officiating.

The substitution of “caused by” does not work here. Therefore, “due to” should not be used. The correct sentence would be:

—The game was lost because of bad officiating.

This begs the question, do “due to” and “because of” mean different things? The answer is that “because of” modifies an entire clause. The use of “because of” requires a situation where a reason is given for a given action in a clause. As a result, neither “due to” nor “because of” are interchangeable with each other. Let’s look at three examples:

1. The clock was unreliable because of the drastic temperature changes in the room.

Explain: “Due to” will not work here, because it can only modify a noun. Here, it is trying to modify the clause “clock was unreliable.” Had the sentence began with “the unreliable clock,” “due to” could be used since it would be modifying the noun “clock,” rather than an entire clause.

2. The game was lost because of poor play-calling by the coach.

Explain: “Due to” will not work here because it would be trying to modify the clause, “game was lost,” instead of a noun.

3. The soup was cold because of the inattentive chef.

Explain: So as the sentences we have talked above. Besides, “due to” will not work here because it cannot be substituted by the words “caused by.”

Other Conditions to Use Due To

Given the above mentioned “due to” grammar rules, you might need to pay attention when using it. What’s more, it can still be used in other contexts, such as replacing words such as “payable to” or “supposed to.” For example, “due to” can be used in the following way: “The bill is due to the accounts receivable manager by Monday morning.” “Due to” is being used instead of “payable to” in the above sentence and is referring to the payment of money.

In another example, “due to” can be used in the following sentence: “The bus is due to arrive in three hours.” Here, “due to” is used to replace “supposed to.”

Can a sentence start with «due to»?

I think a sentence cannot start with due to. But if I need to say due to this thing something is happening how can I say it?

How can I write the following sentence correctly?

Due to the changes of polygon shapes, similar error cannot be obtained when computing the residuals with respect to each other.

After posting this question, I found the following link: Can a sentence start with «Due to» (UsingEnglish.com). A post in that thread says

Since due to is an adjective, it needs a noun or pronoun to modify. To assure this functioning, the safest place for due to is after a form of the verb to be because there it is always serves as an adjective: «The cancellation was due to bad weather» (due to modifies the noun cancellation).

The most dangerous placement of due to is at the head of a sentence. In «Due to rain» or in «Due to the lateness of the hour» or «Due to a cold I was unable to attend», due to is treated as an adverbial phrase. this is a misuse. A test to determine whether due to is being used correctly is to replace it with «caused by» or «attributed to», which is what due to means. If the replacements make sense, due to is correctly used, as it is in «The explosion was due to [caused by or attributed to] carelessness.»

Source: AGU Grammar and Style Guide 3.1

(Casiopea, #2 16-May-2006, 13:56)

Now I am so confused.

2 Answers 2

Here’s a question that the Google NGram Viewer can actually help with. Look at the values on the Y axis. The usage of «Due to» at the beginning of a sentence has reached 0.0008% in 2008. That may not sound like much, but it represents orders of magnitude more frequency than most of the NGrams offered as proof on this SE site.

Only the severest and most arbitrary prescriptivist would argue that all these instances are wrong.

OED senses 9a and 9b, clearly show that, contrary to the AGU Grammar and Style, which you quote that due to can be used to mean the various things they say it cannot mean.

And note particularly the OED’s comments that some authorities claimed, early in the 20th century, that it could not be used at the start of a sentence. This is now refuted.

It is, however worth noting that almost none of the examples given have it at the start of a sentence. It has clearly been considered, over time, to be an inelegant positioning. And perhaps for that reason objections are still made. Note that the one exception to this is the one from 1957, made by our present Queen.

1669 R. Boyle Hist. Fluidity & Firmnesse i. xxiv, in Certain Physiol. Ess. (ed. 2) 196 The motion of the Oyly drops may be in part due to some partial solution made of them by the vivous spirit.

1712 R. Steele Spectator No. 352. ⁋1 All this is due to the very silly Pride that generally prevails, of being valued for the Ability of carrying their Point.

1801 Monthly Rev. 35 537 M. De La Place..found the secular equation of the moon to be due to the action of the sun on the moon.

1867 W. H. Smyth & E. Belcher Sailor’s Word-bk. Driftage, the amount due to lee-way.

1875 B. Jowett in tr. Plato Dialogues (ed. 2) IV. 136
The..difficulty in the Philebus, is really due to our ignorance of the philosophy of the age.

1928 Daily Express 11 Aug. 7/1 Death was due to heart failure.

1967 Canad. Med. Assoc. Jrnl. 5 Aug. 286/1 Improved treatment of diabetes mellitus in the past 45 years, due largely to the discovery of insulin and antibiotics.

2007 A. Theroux Laura Warholic vi. 85 Much of the grit around the stoveworks was due to his rather bad eyesight.

and is now usually regarded as acceptable standard English, but began to be criticized in usage guides in the early 20th century, apparently beginning with H. W. Fowler Dict. Mod. Eng. Usage (1926), which described it as ‘often used by the illiterate as though it had passed, like owing to, into a mere compound preposition’. Cf. owing adj. 3b.**

1840 Rep. Comm. Physics & Meteorol. Royal Soc. Antarctic Exped. 2
Periodical variations of temperature at its [sc. the earth’s] surface, due to the sun’s position above the horizon.

1847 J. Craig New Universal Dict. at Arborized Agates which have the ramified appearance of plants, due to the infiltration of water charged with metallic oxides.

1897 S. T. Clover Paul Travers’ Adv. 190 [The Koturah] was taxed to her capacity, due to the fact that..she was advertised to go first to Adelaide.

1920 Science 29 Oct. 406/2 Due to added medical responsibilities, Dr. Hancock has now closed his Orthopterological studies.

1957 Queen Elizabeth II in Times 15 Oct. 10/6 Due to inability to market their grain, prairie farmers have for some time been faced with a serious shortage of funds.

1978 A. North & I. Hogg Guns & Gunsmiths i. vii. 122 The earliest multi-barrelled guns are known as ribaudequins or organs, due to their similarity to organ pipes.

2014 B. Moran Making Marion vii. 68 Valerie had made me promise to come along to Fire Night that Sunday, the last one having been cancelled due to the sudden disappearance of Grace.

Correct Use of the Phrase ‘Due to’

The phrase ‘due to’ tends to be overused in academic writing and, although it is becoming increasingly acceptable in modern usage, your writing will be more professional and concise if you understand when it is most appropriate. Often, ‘because’ or ‘because of’ should be used instead.

If you could substitute ‘attributable to’, ‘caused by’ or ‘resulting from’ for ‘due to’ in your sentence, then you have probably used ‘due to’ correctly. It modifies nouns and is usually preceded by the verb ‘to be’ in one form or another. For example:

‘My fitness is due to regular exercise.’

In this sentence, ‘my fitness’ is the noun and ‘due to’ follows ‘is’, a form of the verb ‘to be’.

In contrast, ‘because of’ modifies verbs. For example:

‘I drove because of the rain.’

In this sentence, ‘drove’ is the verb. It would be incorrect to say, ‘I drove due to the rain’ because there is no noun for ‘due to’ to modify in the clause ‘I drove’, and no form of the verb ‘to be’.

Consider this example:

‘The picnic was cancelled due to the weather.’

This is incorrect because ‘due to’ does not modify a noun or follow a form of the verb ‘to be’. ‘Because of’ should be used instead:

‘The picnic was cancelled because of the weather.’

However, you could say (although it sounds a bit formal in this context):

‘The picnic’s cancellation was due to the weather.’

Here, ‘due to’ follows ‘was’, a form of ‘to be’, and modifies the noun ‘cancellation’.

Any sentence that begins with ‘due to’ is likely to be incorrect. For example:

‘Due to our lack of data, we could not complete the research.’

In this sentence, there is no noun for ‘due to’ to modify, and no verb preceding it.

‘Due to the fact that’ tends to be an unnecessarily wordy way to say ‘because’. For example:

‘The picnic was cancelled due to the fact that it was raining.’

This sentence would be much more concise using ‘because’:

‘The picnic was cancelled because it was raining.’

If you are unsure whether ‘due to’ is correct in a sentence, use ‘because of’ instead, except in the following instances, when ‘due to’ is used in quite a different way:

‘She was due to be paid on Wednesday.’

‘We were due to leave at 7 a.m.’

Used in this way—to mean ‘supposed to’—‘due to’ is quite correct.

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Can “due to” and “because of ” be used interchangeably?

He was lost because of the storm.

He was lost due to the storm.

He lost his way due to the storm.

He lost his way because of the storm.

4 Answers 4

(EDIT: This is a traditional set of rules for «due to» and «because of», but there is disagreement over whether these rules apply to modern English. See further discussion below.)

They are not interchangeable.

He was lost because of the storm. (correct)

*He was lost due to the storm. (incorrect)

*He lost his way due to the storm. (incorrect)

He lost his way because of the storm. (correct)

These examples highlight the difference between «due to» and «because of»:

He failed because of bad planning.

His failure was due to bad planning.

In short, «because of» modifies a verb, but «due to» modifies a noun (or pronoun). In common usage, though, you will often hear/see them being used interchangeably. More detail can be found in this article.

EDIT: See also this article, which mentions that

EDIT: Grammar Girl discusses «due to» in an article with references to Strunk & White, Fowler’s Modern English Usage, and The American Heritage Guide to Contemporary Usage and Style, and my paraphrase of her conclusion is that traditional restrictions on «due to» are being increasingly abandoned by modern style guides and may eventually be abolished altogether.

If you consider what the words due to and because of really mean:

Thus, your catastrophe was due to bad planning, so you had to pay «bad planning» whatever bill you had, the only currency being catastrophe because bad planning doesn’t accept anything else and doesn’t give change.

People feared him because of his angry bouts.

People exist because of the Sun.
People exist because of the Sun’s warmth.

Although, when attributing something positive it is more natural to say «Thanks to X» instead of «because of X» unless X was anticipated to be bad and turned out good anyway (where the inflection changes).

A was expected to be bad but turned out good:

I thought I was a goner. but I actually got back home because of X! («Thanks to» also applicable in same inflexion)

The puppies ran away because of the storm.

The puppies ran away because of the noise caused by the storm

The puppies’ running away was due to leaving the gate unlatched * technically grammatical but more difficult to say and is generally unsaid/avoided

The drought was due to (the) lack of water.

That is still a very interesting question

The rule about adjective/adverb is completely bogus. The better rule is that if you can substitute the exact phrase «caused by» for «due to,» it’s defensible. However, it’s still almost always unnecessary and bad.

Here’s an example from a student paper: «. relationships that almost never last due to the rocky foundations they are formed upon.» If «due to» is a prepositional phrase modifying the noun phrase «rocky foundations,» what is the object of the preposition «upon»? There is no simplistic grammatical explanation of whether «due to» is correct here or not because the whole sentence is faulty and needlessly backwards and wordy. Much better is a complete revision that is far more direct and clear:

«. relationships that almost never last because they are founded upon rocky foundations.»

Here no arguments arise about obscure attributions of adjective vs adverb status—pointless when nouns claimed by other structures abound. The revision is simple, direct and clear, not convoluted and wordy. Correctness is not the real issue; fluidity is.