due to of

[Beverly Flanigan]

A similar conflation I often get, though so far only from L2 learners of
English, is "despite of."

At 03:58 PM 8/13/2007, you wrote:
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>Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>Poster:       "Arnold M. Zwicky" <zwicky at CSLI.STANFORD.EDU>
>Subject:      due to of
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>
>while looking for something entirely different, i came across "due to
>of" 'due to, because of'.  enormous number of google web examples,
>sometimes two or more in a single passage.  a sampling from the first
>few pages of hits:
>
>Bluewater boat ramps closed due to of low water.
>kob.com/article/stories/S158806.shtml?cat=518
>
>.... tx failed due to of too many retries ... rx setup failed due to
>of no skbuff ...
>madwifi.org/wiki/ChipsetFeatures/Roaming
>
>.... and limited distributions are frequently a consequence of other
>threats; populations confined to few small areas due to of habitat
>loss, for example, ...
>www.endangeredspecie.com/causes_of_endangerment.htm
>
>IP joints are flexed due to unopposed action of long flexors, since
>extensor expansion is lax due to of paralysis of interossei &
>lumbricals; ...
>www.wheelessonline.com/ortho/low_ulnar_nerve_injury
>
>If the need for leave is due to of an emergency, employees must
>provide notification as required by the employee's department.
>www.washington.edu/admin/ hr/polproc/prostaff/leave/family.html
>
>The Gardasil clinical trials have been halted due to of the success
>of the ...
>www.vaccinerx.com/news/cervical-cancer/gardasil-trials-end-on-tuesday-
>due-to-success-20070227-93-56.html
>
>The color change is due to of bile pigments that accumulate in the
>blood and eventually in the skin and eyes. Inflammation due to the
>autoimmune disease ...
>findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_g2601/is_0003/ai_2601000309
>
>Sympathomimetic drugs: Concomitant use of yohimbine is
>contraindicated due to an increased risk of hypertensive crisis due
>to of yohimbine's monoamine ...
>www.naturalstandard.com/ InteractionHTML/basicData/yohimbe.asp
>
>,,, was the preferred method for family planning due to of limited
>access to contraception, ...
>www.gfmer.ch/Medical_education_En/PGC_RH_2004/Gil_review.htm
>
>......
>
>a few of these might have resulting from faulty editing -- starting
>with "because of" and shifting to "due to", replacing "because" by
>"due to" without deleting the "of" -- or from inadvertent blending of
>"due to" and "because of", but the numbers are so large that it's
>hard to avoid concluding that a fair number of these people are
>typing exactly what they intend to type, that they think that "due to
>of" is another multi-word prepositional constuction expressing cause.
>
>no doubt "due to of" originated in an error of one sort or another,
>but now it seems to have a life of its own for some people.
>
>not in the standard usage dictionaries.
>
>arnold
>
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