"due"

[Jonathan Lighter]

They told me the same thing, but I confess I've never been able to get it
quite straight in my mind. That tells me it's not worth worrying about.

But what's with OED and these other "dues"?  Are they hidden within some OED
definition I can't fathom due to said mental block?

JL

On Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 2:25 PM, Wilson Gray <hwgray at gmail.com> wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "due"
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Whatever happeneOn Fri, Jun 24, 2011 at 9:23 AM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Consider the universal journalistic phrase "due to." Â As in
> >
> > "The President is due to deliver his speech on blah-blah this afternoon
> at
> > Wacka-Wacka."
> >
>
> What ever happened to
>
> "... coughs _due to_ colds"
>
> the single, quintessential example of the proper syntactic structure
> in which the use of _due to_ is licensed, in accord with the
> etymological source of _due_, as prescribed in the textbook, English
> Grammar? That is, I was taught to interpret the example sentence as a
> word-salad equivalent to
>
> "The President is caused by / is a consequence of / results from,
> etc., deliver his speech ..."
>
> For real, y'all! I ain't bullshittin' ONE pound! (_or_ I ain't
> bullshittin' a POUND!)
>
> And yet, I still believe that prescriptive grammar has real-world uses.
>
> --
> -Wilson
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
>
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>



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