Learn English – the difference between “owing to” and “due to”

adjectivesadverbs

"Due to" seems more common than "owing to" in modern English. Is "owing to" simply an old-fashioned way of saying the same thing, or is there a rule to using it?

Best Answer

AHDEL (and Collins Cobuild) disagree with the dogmatic

'due to must be preceded by and followed by a noun phrase'

It offers [bolding mine]:

due to prep. Because of.

Usage Note: Due to has been widely used for many years as a compound preposition like owing to, but some critics have insisted that due should be used only as an adjective. According to this view, it is incorrect to say The concert was canceled due to the rain, but acceptable to say The cancellation of the concert was due to the rain, where due continues to function as an adjective modifying cancellation.

This seems a fine point, however, and since due to is widely used and understood, there seems little reason to avoid using it as a preposition.

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