What is the grammatical difference between "due to" and "because of" ?

Dear chriso_312-ga;

Thank you for allowing me an opportunity to answer your interesting
question.

The links below do a wonderful job explaining the differences between
the two phrases “due to” and “because of”.

This link http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/grammarlogs3/grammarlogs429.htm
basically reminds us of the proper and meaningful uses of the phrase
“due to” as in these examples:

“Give him what is due to him” (Payable to)

“The bus is due to arrive soon” (Likely to)

“Everything I own is due to my own successes” (Properly owed to)

“His weight is due to his lack of exercise” (Following "to be") 

Most objections about the use of the phrase "due to" in the place of
“because of” is when “due to” is used to create a prepositional phrase
in a verbless clause.
 
"Due mainly to the man’s ignorance, he found himself lost"
 


The second link: http://www.ossweb.com/vp-intro.html provides an even
more straightforward explanation. It tells us that the phrase “due to”
modifies nouns and is generally used after some form of the verb to be
(is, are, was, were, etc.) as in this example:

“Bill's success is due to wisdom and motivation” (the phrase “due to”
modifies success, not wisdom).

The phrase “because of” should modify verbs as in this example:

“Bill resigned because of poor health” (the phrase “because of “
modifies resigned)

It should be noted that in today’s grammar, such errors with these
phrases are relatively common and somewhat more acceptable than they
once were. Because of this, (or due to this, as you may prefer to say)
they do not necessarily raise red flags among those who might
otherwise notice a more readily identifiable grammatical error.

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future. Thank you for stopping by.

Best regards;
Tutuzdad-ga


INFORMATION SOURCES


THE GRAMMAR LOGS #429
http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/grammarlogs3/grammarlogs429.htm


HOW TO WIND THE GRAMMAR GAME
http://www.ossweb.com/vp-intro.html



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"Due to" proper grammar "because of"