A frequent question concerns the correct use of ‘owing to’ and ‘due to’. Both phrases originate in the world of finance and moneylending; and of course the word ‘due’ still has the sense of ‘money owed’ in expressions such as ‘rent due’, ‘due by 14 March’ or ‘to pay your dues’.
A later, more general meaning of ‘due’ is of something well-deserved (‘with all due respect’, ‘credit where it’s due’). More loosely, it comes to refer to anything that can be simply attributed to something or someone. ‘Death was due to heart failure’, for example. As a result, ‘due to’ and ‘owing to’ have become practically synonymous with ‘because of’, and are frequently used in its place:
- ‘Due to the rain, the president did not attend the ceremony’
- ‘Owing to the rain, the president did not attend the ceremony.’
Now, most editors agree that both of the above sentences are grammatically correct. But some purists insist that ‘due’ should not be used prepositionally, as in sentence 1, but should always be attached to a verb:
3. ‘The president’s absence was due to the rain’
4. ‘It was due to the rain that the president did not attend the ceremony.’
Equally, although ‘owing to’ works fine as an introductory prepositional phrase in sentence 2, it would look pretty strange in sentence 3: (‘The president’s absence was owing to the rain’).
So the sensible solution seems to be to use ‘Owing to’ for introductory prepositional phrases. Elsewhere in the sentence, use ‘owing to’ or ‘is/was due to’, depending on construction.