Usage of Because of AND due to.When are they to be used

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mundasingh123: Legendary Member; Posts: 2330; Joined: Fri Jan 15, 2010 5:14 amFollowed by: 26 members; Thanked: 56 times

by mundasingh123 » Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:45 pm

regarding the use of "because of" and "due to ".Can they be used interchangably?

"due to" functions as an adjective rather than a compound preposition.
Plesae consider the following sentence.
The cancellation of the program was due to wain.

Is Due to here an adjective or a part of working verb "was due to " ?
Also I read 1 of Papgust's flashcards which said that "due to" is to be interpreted as caused by.
So we should say :
The cancellation was due to rain.
We cant say
The cancellation was because of rain-Incorrect
This is a topic that has been discussed before.However i thought that creating a new thread would be more appropriate as the old thread is quite long and messy

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Source: Beat The GMAT — Sentence Correction | Mon Aug 30, 2010 1:45 pm

gmat_perfect: Legendary Member; Posts: 1083; Joined: Wed Feb 24, 2010 9:38 pmFollowed by: 14 members; Thanked: 127 times

by gmat_perfect » Mon Aug 30, 2010 2:24 pm

There was a discussion on this one, and In have posted on that post.

Again I am going to discuss.

Just mind it:

Due to:

If the verb is be verb (am, is, are, was, were), use "due to".

Example:

The cancellation of the program was due to rain.

Because of:

If the verb is main verb, use because of.

Example:

The program was canceled because of rain.

I have found SC in OG, which has used "due to" preceded by "was" in the wrong option.

Thanks.

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RyanDark: Senior | Next Rank: 100 Posts; Posts: 62; Joined: Fri Oct 23, 2009 12:54 pmFollowed by: 1 member; Location: Pittsburgh,PA; Thanked: 4 times

by RyanDark » Mon Aug 30, 2010 7:45 pm

When I was searching for this some days back, I found that:
Due to is used to modify a noun where as Because of is used to modify a verb.
In your example:
The cancellation of the program was due to rain.
Here you are modifying cancellation-a noun.

Next Example:
The program was canceled because of rain.
Here you are modifying canceled -a verb.

I am not sure whether this rule has any exceptions(like every rule in SC..lol),but I found this one working for me pretty much all time.

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GMATGuruNY: GMAT Instructor; Posts: 15539; Joined: Tue May 25, 2010 12:04 pmFollowed by: 1906 members; Location: New York, NY; Thanked: 13060 times; GMAT Score:790

by GMATGuruNY » Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:53 am

RyanDark wrote:When I was searching for this some days back, I found that:
Due to is used to modify a noun where as Because of is used to modify a verb.
In your example:
The cancellation of the program was due to rain.
Here you are modifying cancellation-a noun.

Next Example:
The program was canceled because of rain.
Here you are modifying canceled -a verb.

I am not sure whether this rule has any exceptions(like every rule in SC..lol),but I found this one working for me pretty much all time.

RyanDark is correct.

The phrase due to is an adjective that means "caused by". An adjective modifies a noun:

The cancellation of the game was due to rain. (What kind of cancellation? A cancellation due to rain. Due to rain is an adjective modifying the noun cancellation.)

When due to is being used correctly, we should be able to replace it with the words caused by:

The cancellation of the game was caused by rain.

The phrase because of is an adverb that is used to modify a verb:

The game was canceled because of rain. (Why was the game canceled? Because of rain. Because of is an adverb modifying the verb canceled.)

Hope this helps!

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