previous/before

Question

Could you confirm whether both of the following sentence are okay? Thank you.

1. Due to their previous bitter debate, they became enemies from best friends.
2. Due to their bitter debate before, they became enemies from best friends.

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

lucas21c both of the following sentence are okay?

The underlined words are OK there (but do you need them?), but there is something odd about the main clause. I would do this:

Because of their bitter debate, they became worst enemies instead of best friends.

Lucas21c · Answer

Then, are both of the following corrected sentences okay?

1. Because of their previous bitter debate, they became worst enemies instead of best friends.
2. Because of their bitter debate before, they became worst enemies instead of best friends.

What is the difference between 'due to ~' and 'because of~' there?

Mister Micawber · Answer

lucas21cThen, are both of the following corrected sentences okay?

Yes, I've already said that the underlined words were OK.

lucas21cWhat is the difference between 'due to ~' and 'because of~' there?

I am old-fashioned about that one.

(OED) says "be due to" has been used in the sense of "be ascribed to" or "be caused by" since the middle of the 17th century. According to this Dr Samuel Johnson was somehow critical of this adjectival usage saying "the use may be proper but unusual". The adverbial use of "due to" in the sense of "because of" first appeared in literature in 1897. However William A. Craigie first criticized this as "erroneous" and a more harsh critique came from Henry W. Fowler, who in his "Modern Usage of English" (1926) censured as "illiterate" the use of "due to" to mean "because of". The adverbial use, however, is now widely current though rejected by many grammarians.

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The American Heritage® Book of English Usage.
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
3. Word Choice: New Uses, Common Confusion, and Constraints
§ 107. due to

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.

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