"due to" and "general"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Wilson, are you sure they admonished you against constructions like,

  1. "due to they are nasty" ?

  The only "due to" prescription I ever heard of opposed things like,

  2. "Game cancelled due to rain."

  There's a difference in function here.  I don't recall ever seeing the "new" "due to" addressed.  For me, 2 is normal (as is the prescriptive "The cancellation is due to rain"), but 1 is nearly unimaginable.

  JL


Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM> wrote:
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Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Wilson Gray
Subject: Re: "due to" and "general"
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Prescriptivists - this is not a reference to anyone here, of course -
have been fighting this battle since at least the '40's, when I was in
elementary school. The phrase, "due to (the fact)" = "for the
following reason," is practically a shibboleth of BE, due to the fact
that *everybody* uses it. Wouldn't nobody not use it.

OTOH, the fact that you young whippersnappers consider this to be new
and worthy of note suggests that the prescriptivists came damned close
to winning this particular battle. I feel for them. :-(

-Wilson

On 8/29/06, Chris F. Waigl wrote:
> ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society
> Poster: "Chris F. Waigl"
> Organization: rather inconsistent
> Subject: Re: "due to" and "general"
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Tue, 2006-08-29 at 15:19 -0700, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> > "We shall them [viz., women] 'those who are dangerous to see, due to
> > they are nasty'" (p. 36).
> >
> > I have seen this "due to" in freshman writing used as a synonym for
> > "because; for the reason that" (as distinct from "because of"), but
> > OED doesn't include it.
>
> I have a picture documenting the following use of "due to" on a
> laser-printed sign in an upscale-ish deli in London:
>
> ----
> Roasted chickens are temporarily unavailable at present due to chicken
> oven out of order.
> http://flickr.com/photos/lascribe/138332083/in/set-72057594117390961/
> ----
>
> Chris Waigl
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


--
-Wilson
––
Everybody says, "How hard it is that we have to die"––a strange
complaint to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.

--Sam Clemens

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