Are ‘owing to’ and ‘Due to’ interchangeable? And can we begin a sentence with ‘Due to’? This may have been discussed earlier on this forum, but I do not remember having participated in it. Though I find these being increasingly interchanged/used these days, we, in fact, were taught otherwise as below:
He was absent due to illness (Not good English).
His absence was due to illness (Good English).
[color=blue]Both of the above sentences are okay, but I would put a comma after “to” in the first sentence.
Thank you, Canadian. However, I would like to see what the British and the American users are going to say.
Really, Canadian English and American English are pretty much exactly the same. I bet “zed”, “grade three”, “toque”, and “poutine” are about it for the differences.
I don’t understand about the comma after “to” though - “He was absent due to, illness” ? That isn’t right.
He might have meant it after ‘absent’, in which case also it doesn’t look acceptable to me.
I agree with you, Anglophile.
… he was absent, due to illness … - might, at a stretch, be correct within a longer sentence, but a comma is certainly not needed in most scenarios and within this context where the intention appears to be to explain the reason for the absence it is an important part of the main clause.
‘He was absent due to illness.’ - This is correct without a comma. Regarding your original comment, I don’t think many native English speakers would consider that to be poor English. I suspect that most are more likely to use ‘due to’ than ‘owing to’.
[color=blue]Yes, I meant it after absent; I am very sorry for the careless mistake.
I agree that the comma is not essential, but it is not definitely wrong either. It’s just a preference I stated, and actually there are some who use commas a lot more than I do.
***** NOT A TEACHER *****
Hello, Anglophile:
Like you, I learned that rule, too.
He was absent because of / owing to illness.
His absent was due [an adjective] to illness. (“to illness” modifies “due.”)
It seems, however, that good American English now definitely accepts “due to” as a preposition.
Several years ago, I happened to see an examination paper used at the the best adult ESL school in the U.S. (“best” is, of course, my opinion).
I noticed that “due to” was being used as a preposition.
So I would say that the battle to keep “due” as an adjective has been lost. We might as well join the crowd that says “Everyone should bring THEIR book.”
Language marches on. I guess that we have no choice but to keep up with the parade.
James