What is the difference between "owing to" and "due to"?
"Due to" seems more common than "owing to" in modern English. Is "owing to" simply an old-fashioned way of saying the same thing, or is there a rule to using it?
AHDEL (and Collins Cobuild) disagree with the dogmatic
'due to must be preceded by and followed by a noun phrase'
It offers [bolding mine]:
due to prep. Because of.
Usage Note: Due to has been widely used for many years as a compound preposition like owing to, but some critics have insisted that due should be used only as an adjective. According to this view, it is incorrect to say The concert was canceled due to the rain, but acceptable to say The cancellation of the concert was due to the rain, where due continues to function as an adjective modifying cancellation.
This seems a fine point, however, and since due to is widely used and understood, there seems little reason to avoid using it as a preposition.
Note: This lengthy answer tries to identify the historical reasons underlying the traditional (for the past 100 years or so) view of the difference between 'due to' and 'owing to.' If you dislike long answers or history-focused answers, I encourage you not to waste your time reading this answer.
Objectively, it's quite difficult to make a simple, logical case on behalf of the traditional rule that "owing to" is acceptable at the start of a prepositional phrase linked to a noun but "due to" is not. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fifth edition (2010) has very brief entries for the two phrases, and those entries offer no obvious basis for insisting on such a fundamental difference in acceptable usage:
due to prep. Because of.
...
owing to prep. Because of; on account of: I couldn't attend, owing to illness.
So "due to" is a preposition meaning "because of," and "owing to" is a preposition meaning "because of"—not much basis for distinction there. It follows that, in modern usage, embracing "owing to" while rejecting "due to" has no rational basis. If the justification doesn't lie in historical idiomatic preference, it doesn't lie anywhere.
That being the case, I propose to look at how usage commentators through the years have addressed the question of when it was appropriate to use "owing to" and "due to."
Views of 'due to' and 'owing to' through the years
Webster's Dictionary of English Usage (1989) has an interesting but quite lengthy note on the question under its entry for "due to." Here is the first part of that note:
due to Concern over the propriety of due to is one of those long-lived controversies in which the grounds for objection have changed over time. The present-day objection is to due to used as a preposition in the sense of "owing to" or "because of," but the controversy began in the 18th century with owing. There were some, apparently, who objected to the use of owing as an "active participle," in the sense "owed, due," which was held to be proper only for the "passive participle" owed (or due). Johnson's dictionary notes this controversy (under owe) and comments that Lord Bolingbroke had been aware of it, and avoided owing by using due in the sense "attributable": "Bolinbroke [sic] says, the effect is due to the cause." Johnson did not agree; he thought that most writers used due only of debt. Johnson did not enter Bolingbroke's use of due in his first (1755) edition. He inserted it in a later edition, however, with a quotation from Robert Boyle and the annotation, "proper, but not usual."
Somehow, Johnson's comments on due at his entry for owe (or perhaps just his attitude) were transmitted to American handbooks of the second half of the 19th century: Bache 1869, Ayres 1881, Compton 1898. The gist of their argument is objection to the use of due where there is no notion of debt. Johnson's comment was not, however, repeated by Webster 1828.
In the 20th century the grounds of objection change. A few writers—Vizetelly 1906, Josephine Turck Baker 1927—repeat the 19th-century objection. But with Utter 1916, MacCracken & Sandison 1917, Fowler 1926, Krapp 1927, the sense of "attributable" is acceptable as long as the due is clearly an adjective; when due to is used as a preposition introducing a phrase that modifies anything but a particular noun, it is objectionable.
Regrettably, WDEU offers no additional insight into the identity and reasoning of the eighteenth-century writers whom it cites rather vaguely as "some, apparently, who objected to the use of owing as an 'active participle.'" But the rest of the WDEU account is clearly presented and seems to be accurate for the most part.
'Owing' in the passive sense, and 'due to' as indebtedness
Here is Samuel Johnson's note on due versus owing in the full-length second edition of A Dictionary of the English Language, volume 2 (1756):
- A practice has long prevailed among writers, to use owing, the active participle of owe, in a passive sense, for owed or due. Of this impropriety Bolingbroke was aware, and, having no quick sense of the force of English words, has used due, in the sense of consequence or imputation, which by other writers is used only of debt. We say, the money is due to me; Bolingbroke says, the effect is due to the cause.
I note in passing that Johnson spells Bolingbroke with a g twice in this comment, presumably having ferreted out the "Bolinbroke [sic]" typographical error that WDEU calls out in its quotation from the first edition of Johnson's dictionary, published a year earlier. In any case, the thrust of Johnson's comment seems to be that Bolingbroke wrongly (or dubiously) used "due to" in the sense of "attributable to" because he was leery of using "owing to" in that sense, even though doing so would have been in accordance with "a practice [that] has long prevailed among writers"—and that Bolingbroke's leeriness was a consequence of his imperfect understanding of the argument against using "owing to" in a passive sense.
Because Johnson refers to the use of owing in a passive sense as an "impropriety," he seems to accept the then-current argument against such usage. But in addition, he criticizes the use of due "in the sense of consequence or imputation." This second criticism, as WDEU observes, has had no significant proponents among usage commentators for almost a century. Indeed, George Marsh, Lectures on the English Language, fourth edition (1861) uses "was due to," "is due to," and "are due to" nine times, and in all nine instances "due to" has the meaning "attributable to." On the other hand, Goold Brown, The Grammar of English Grammars, tenth edition (1851) very scrupulously uses "is due to" (which appear nine times in that book) only in the sense of "is owed to."
Using 'due to' to mean "attributable to"
It's not difficult to see why, as a practical matter, usage commentators might have wished to prevent the "attributable to" sense of "due to" from taking hold. Consider this example from a sermon by preached by Robert Hall on June 1, 1802:
But to confine our attention to the number of the slain, would give us a very inadequate idea of the ravages of the sword. ... We cannot see an individual expire, though a stranger or an enemy, without being sensibly moved, and prompted by compassion to lend him every assistance in our power. Every trace of resentment vanishes in a moment: every other emotion gives way to pity and terror. In these last extremities, we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature.
Here, the meaning of "due to" appears to be "owed to," but if you read the final sentence in isolation, you might reasonably conclude that Hall had in mind the meaning "attributable to." In fact, Alexander Bain, English Composition and Rhetoric: A Manual (1867)—which uses "due to" in four other places in the text, all in the "attributable to" sense—seems to read Hall's intention in precisely that way:
"(In these last extremities) 'At such a moment,' we remember nothing but the respect and tenderness due to our common nature." ... The present sentence is an oratorical appeal for pity or sympathy on the ground of our common humanity.
But saying that Hall makes the appeal for pity or sympathy "on the ground of" our common nature can be interpreted as saying that he attributes the sympathy and pity that we feel to our common nature, whereas the older understanding of Hall's words would be that we owe such respect and tenderness as an obligation or debt to our common nature.
As WDEU notes, Richard Bache, Vulgarisms & Other Errors of Speech, second edition (1869) seems to have been the first nineteenth-century commentator to reassert the argument against "due to" in the sense of "attributable to":
Due for Owing.
The use of due for owing is a very common mistake, and is sometimes made by good speakers and writers.
We may say, "It is due to such and such a one to state that he has," etc. This is a legitimate use of the word due, which in the connection, refers to a verbal acknowledgment, the justness of making which resembles the obligation of a debt. But we should not say, "The success of the scheme was due solely to his exertions;" we should say, "The success of the scheme was owing (attributable) solely to his exertions."
But Bache's analysis was by no means universally affirmed by contemporaneous commentators. Fitzedward Hall, Recent Exemplifications of False Philology (1872), for example, in discussing the provenance of affiliate and locate in English, unmistakably uses "due to" in the sense of "attributable to":
For, if not due to an "illogical process", they must be due to the "presuming and ignorant" who took them from affiliation and location.
Likewise, Ebenezer Brewer, Errors of Speech and of Spelling, volume 1 (1877) seems very much at ease in using "due to" in situations such as this one:
The loss of the h [in words such as heir, honest, and hour], like so many other of our irregularities, is due to French influence.
Other usage commentators in the post-Bache era who either use "due to" in the sense of "attributable to" themselves or uncritically cite examples by others who do so are Alexander Bain, A Higher English Grammar, second edition (1891); Albert Raub, Helps in the Use of Good English (1897); William Hodgson, Errors in the Use of English, revised edition (1898); Huber Buehler, Practical Exercises in English (1899); Ralcy Bell, The Worth of Words (1902); George Krapp, Modern English: Its Growth and Present Use (1910); and Charles Onions, An Advanced English Syntax (1911). As WDEU implies, most (but not all) of these commentators are British.
Arrayed behind Bache are several U.S. commentators: Charles Bardeen, Verbal Pitfalls (1883), Alfred Ayres, The Verbalist (1884); John Bechtel, Slips of Speech (1901); Frank Vizetelly, A Desk-book of Errors in English (1906); and Thomas Osmun's update of Ayers's The Verbalist (1911).
The origin of what is today called the 'traditional view'
Two of the authors that WDEU cites as adhering to this viewpoint actually take a different view. Alfred Compton, Some Common Errors of Speech (1898) rejects the Bache position and is in fact the first commentator I've found who explicitly objects to "due to" when it is used "as an adverb":
Somewhat analogous to the misuse of liable is that of due. This word is correctly used as an adjective, in the sense of "owing" as: "The success of the enterprise was entirely due to the persevering efforts of this one man." Due to is here the exact equivalent of owing to. It is no better than the latter, and Webster says it is not much used. It is, however, strictly correct; but when used, as it is occasionally, as an adverb, it is without good authority. "He was unable to arrive in time, due to the delaying of his train by a displaced rail," is inexcusable. Owing to is used both as an adverb and as an adjective, due to only as an adjective.
Notice that the example that Compton endorses ("The success of the enterprise was entirely due to the persevering efforts of this one man") is exceedingly similar to the example that Bache gives of unacceptable usage ("The success of the scheme was due solely to his exertions").
If you are wondering what fundamental difference Compton sees between "The success of the enterprise was entirely due to the persevering efforts of this one man" (correct) and "He was unable to arrive in time, due to the delaying of his train by a displaced rail" (incorrect), you can see the problem as Compton did by replacing "due to" with "attributable to" in each sentence:
The success of the enterprise was entirely attributable to the persevering efforts of this one man. ["correctly used"]
and
He was unable to arrive in time, attributable to the delaying of his train by a displaced rail. ["inexcusable"]
Josephine Turck Baker, The Correct Word: How to Use It (1910) rejects the Bache argument that "due to" applies properly only to debt, but then she devotes the rest of her discussion to showing how to accommodate that view:
Due To. Although due is censured by some writers as being carelessly employed in the sense of owing, this use is recorded as correct. The following is suggested by those who would restrict due to mean that which is given or paid; owing, to indicate the source of some exiting condition; as "This explanation is due to you." "The accident was owing to carelessness."
As if to underscore that she does not agree with the Bache camp, Baker uses "due to" in the proscribed way in this entry for "contagious and infectious":
Contagious and Infectious. Contagious means catching; infectious is applied to diseases that are not "catching," but that are due to climatic, malarious, or other prevailing conditions.
Google Books doesn't find a 1927 edition of Correct English, so I can't check it to see whether Baker changed her mind about "due to" 17 years later. Google Books does, however, find a 1917 edition of The Correct Word, and its entry for "due to" is identical to the one in the 1910 edition. Perhaps WDEU's "1927" date for Baker's book is a typo for 1917. If so, WDEU's suggestion that—by noting the Bache objection, Baker is siding with Bache—is quite misleading. Even less defensible, for reasons that I have detailed above, is WDEU's claim that Compton is firmly in Bache's camp.
As WDEU notes, Robert Utter is an early proponent of what is now called the traditional view but might instead be called the Compton view. Utter argues on behalf of this view in Every-Day Words and Their Uses (1916), page 96:
Due to. Due to is an adjective phrase; on account of is adverbial. The distinction should always be sharply made. We say, "The dissatisfaction of the people was due to the high tax-rate; taxes are high because of (or on account of) the necessity for new roads."
But two years earlier he made the same basic argument in A Guide to Good English (1914):
An adjective modifier should not be made to do duty as an adverb.
Wrong: He could not see, due to the darkness.
Right: He could not see because of the darkness
Right: The darkness was due to the cloud over the moon.
WDEU correctly notes that Henry Fowler, A Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926) also subscribes to the Compton view.
Jumping ahead to Bryan Garner, Garner's Modern American Usage, third edition (2009), we find that Compton's view from 1898 remains largely intact as what Garner terms "the traditional view":
due to. The traditional view is that due to should be restricted to adjectival uses in the sense "attributable to," usually following the verb to be (sometimes understood in context). ...
Despite the traditional view that the adjectival use is best (due being equivalent to attributable), the phrase is commonly used as a preposition or conjunctive adverb for because of, owing to, caused by, or on the grounds of—e.g.: "Due to {read Because of} a mistake in Lincoln-Mercury's press material, which we didn't notice until we read Nissan's press material, the maximum cargo room listed for the Villager in our 1992 review was incorrect" (N.Y. Newsday). ...
Conclusion
Because modern English listeners and readers are increasingly accustomed to hearing and seeing "due to" used interchangeably with "owing to," "because of," "on account of," etc., as "a preposition or conjunctive adverb" (in Garner's words), they may find opposition to such usage difficult to understand. But for a sense of how awkward such formulations sounded in 1898, when Alfred Compton wrote in opposition to the usage, you need only replace "due to" with "attributable to"—a phrase that likewise can be read as meaning "because of" but has not shifted toward interchangeability with "owing to" as "due to" has.
It seems to me that the only reasonable basis for rejecting "due to" as a preposition or conjunctive adverb meaning "because of" would be that it isn't idiomatic in everyday English. But today it is idiomatic in everyday English, which is why Bryan Garner assigns "due to misused for because of or owing to" a language-change index of Stage 4, at which stage "The form becomes virtually universal but is opposed on cogent grounds by a few linguistic stalwarts (die-hard snoots)."
I don't know what "cogent grounds" Garner thinks exist for continuing to oppose "due to" in its Stage 4 sense. I can think of only two arguments for avoiding it: (1) there are still some listeners and readers to whom the usage sounds grating, distracting, or just plain wrong; and (2) it is easy to sidestep the issue by swapping in an alternative phrase (such as "because of") that no one reacts badly to. Obviously, speakers and writers will have their own view of the value of making a special effort to avoid needlessly antagonizing some portion of their audience.
I am confident that the traditional Compton view of "due to" will not exist even as a faint memory a century from now, given how firmly established the idiomatic use of "due to" is today. But the Compton view is not yet defunct, and I'm not inclined to ignore it in my own writing, whatever others may prefer to do in theirs.