Quick answer Roger (sorry I'm 2 days late, bit busy - workload etc..
;-)):
Because 'due to' takes the place of a single adjective (Dummett,
'Grammar and Syntax', a great book written for undergrads and for me
;-)). You should use an adjective to describe a noun.
Because 'railway station' was a descriptive and elegant name whose
replacement is (to me) inexplicable. 'Bus station' is equally d & e...
My problem (obsession?) is that schools, certainly in the USA and UK,
stopped teaching the English Language in the 70s, leaving us with a
couple of generations of students who cannot name parts of a sentence
and teachers who cannot teach the subject to the level that we need
(and the Government, belatedly, wants). Our language, as a
consequence, is evolving through ignorance or cultural famine. Since I
teach undergraduates to fly, I have the facility to make up some of
what I regard is a deficiency in their education - "lucky them" I hear
you say through gritted teeth... ;-)
OM content (warning, polemic): the DSLRs that I see are little better
than point and shoots, given all the restrictions that the sensor
places on their low light capability. We on the List have long ranted
against 'wunderbricks', but what we are being presented with are just
that: clumsy, limited in exposure range, dependent upon batteries of
limited life, providing flawed reproduction of certain scenes (high
contrast edges, deep shadows) and slow to use. In addition, we are
told that the lenses for the SLRs have to be specially designed, the
shorter focal lengths are subject to a disadvantageous magnification
factor and dust has to be eliminated with increasingly complex devices.
Finally, because the sensor sizes that we can afford are small, we are
talking of using software to increase our file sizes for reproduction.
We are being led down a garden path beset with thorns ladies and
gentlemen. The DSLRS are gadgets, pretty gadgets I grant you (and I
love gadgets), but gadgets nonetheless.
Chris
On 18 Feb 2004 , at 18:02, Roger Wesson wrote:
>
> OK, quick questions.... why should 'due to' only refer to a noun
> clause?
> I don't see why it's not synonymous with 'because of'.
>
> And... if train station is an abomination, do you also object to 'bus
> station'?
>
> Just curious! OM content - not any that I can really think of. I
> haven't been using my OMs much recently. This has been due to an
> extraordinarily heavy workload....
>
> Roger
>
<|_:-)_|>
C M I Barker
Cambridgeshire, Great Britain.
+44 (0)7092 251126
ftog at threeshoes.co.uk
http://www.threeshoes.co.uk
http://homepage.mac.com/zuiko
... a nascent photo library.
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