due to

due to

1. The use of due to is one of the key topics of discussion in debates about correct usage, along with infer/imply and the split infinitive. As an adjective meaning ‘owing, payable, attributable, (of an event etc.) intended to happen or arrive’ and so on, due + (optional) to causes little difficulty, and the following examples are unexceptionable:

• Pay Caesar what is due to Caesar, and pay God what is due to God —New English Bible, 1961

• Incorrect speed is generally due to a worn idler wheel —Reader's Digest Repair Manual, 1972

• It was due to start at four o'clock, but didn't begin until twenty past —William Trevor, 1976

• Part of her happiness, her unaltered sense of her own superiority, was due to a sense of virginity preserved —Anita Brookner, 1988.

In all these uses, due is an adjective with a complement formed by the preposition to or by a to-infinitive, and they are compositional rather than idiomatic.

2. A problem arises when due to is used as a fixed prepositional phrase, on the analogy of owing to (which no one objects to in this way, for some reason), in which there is no noun or pronoun antecedent that due can be regarded as qualifying and no linking verb such as be or become. The purist view of the matter is that There was a delay due to bad weather is acceptable because due qualifies delay, whereas ☒ The train was delayed due to bad weather is unacceptable because due is grammatically unattached. In some cases, it should be noted, the sentence can be construed either way, underlining the weakness of basing judgements about usage on close grammatical analysis:

• Out in the countryside, two million people are at risk of starvation, due to the failure of the harvest —Independent, 1996.

At present it is prudent to avoid this use of due to and to use alternatives such as owing to, because of, or on account of. However, due to is in strong pursuit of owing to and will undoubtedly become standard during the 21c, if only because analogy is a powerful force and due to has the considerable advantage of convenience over its more awkward rival.

3. Examples of the disputed use:

• Due to the incidence of Christmas and New Year statutory holidays it has been necessary to rearrange certain collection days —Alyn and Deeside Observer, 1976

• Michael…hated mathematics at school, mainly due to the teacher —Times Educational Supplement, 1987

• In the past 25 years the population has trebled due to the building program —East Yorkshire Village Book, 1991

• This kind of lucrative deal went downward in recent years due to the world economic situation —Evening Standard, 2004.

4. due to the fact that.

In this expression the fact that is used to turn a prepositional phrase into a conjunction. It can be awkward in use, and is often avoided by substituting because:

• That this slippage is so slight is due to the fact that [substitute because] the other Enterprise staff have worked a great deal of extra time —Annual Report, 1993.

In some cases, however, this substitution does not work well, especially when there is a strong link between due and an antecedent noun, as in the following examples:

• The success of the tampon is partly due to the fact that it is hidden —Germaine Greer, 1970

• Part of this frisson…is undoubtedly due to the fact that woman as a whole has been seen as a pacifying influence throughout their history —Antonia Fraser, 1988.