世界公民文化中心上周寫了一篇e-mail最常見的錯誤之一是appreciate，有讀者問：還有哪些email常見的錯誤？
試試看你看不看得出來這句話哪裡錯了：
（X）It was cancelled due to rain.（活動因雨取消了。）
（X）Due to John’s absence, the boss got very angry.（由於John的缺席，老闆很生氣。）
假如你以前學的文法告訴你，Due to=because of，這兩個詞可以代換，那你一定看不出來這兩句的問題在哪裡。
Due to和Because of這兩個詞，意思相近，但用法卻完全不同。兩者不能夠代換。
首先，Due to本質上是形容詞，只能修飾「狀態」，而Because of是副詞本質，修飾「動作」。來看例句：
他因為準備不足而失敗了。
（O）His failure was due to poor preparation.
（X）He failed due to poor preparation.
Due to說明failure的原因，failure是狀態。Failed是動作，不能用due to來說明。如果要改，可以改成：
（O）He failed because of poor preparation.
有人覺得這種判斷不容易，有個簡單方法，可以幫助你斷到底要用because of還是due to。記住：Caused by=due to。例如：
I missed the bus due to the rain.→I missed the bus caused by the rain.
改成caused by之後說不通。
所以要改成I missed the bus because of the rain.
Due to誤用，有時連老外也犯。來看看幾個國外網站的說明：
BBC英國國家廣播說：
"Due to. This means caused by, not because of".
Due to意思是caused by（起因於），不是because of（因為）
經濟學人寫得更直接：
"When used to mean caused by, due to must follow a noun, as in The cancellation, due to rain, of... Do not write It was cancelled due to rain. If you mean because of and for some reason are reluctant to say it, you probably want owing to. It was cancelled owing to rain is all right."
不要再寫It was cancelled due to rain.這樣的句子了，假如你要說明原因，又不那麼想用because of，你可以用It was cancelled owing to rain is all right.
Owing to，這個字不那麼簡單，有機會再詳談。
33周解決一輩子所需要的英文：世界公民文化中心
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