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I obtained the following sentences at this website https://www.esl-lounge.com/first-certificate/first-certificate-key-word-transformations-27-ans.php.

The picnic was cancelled due to the rain.

The picnic WAS CANCELLED BECAUSE OF THE rain.

The first sentence is wrong but the second is correct.

Why can't we use 'due to' in the first sentence?

Another source (from Magoosh) https://gre.magoosh.com/flashcards/grammar/right-or-wrong/the-picnic-was-canceled-due-to-rain suggests that the first sentence is wrong.

The reason provided by Magoosh is as follows:

"The picnic was canceled, because of rain" or "Cancellation of the picnic was due to rain" or "The cancellation, due to rain, was a problem for ...." The word "due" is an adjective, a noun modifier. It is allowed to modify a noun, as it does in the second and third structure here. It cannot modify the action of a verb, as the original has. For that, we need "because of," which opens a preposition phrase that can modify verbs.

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Idonknow
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  • There's nothing wrong with the first sentence. – Hot Licks Jun 07 '20 at 02:32
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    Avoiding use of "due to" to mean "because of" is one of those silly pretend rules that some people try to push even though they clearly don't reflect normal real-world usage over (in this case) the last six hundred years. – nnnnnn Jun 07 '20 at 03:05

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It appears not to be wrong as the task is to rewrite a sentence, not to correct the mistakes. You can use due to instead of because of.

CALD definition:

due to

because of:

  • A lot of her unhappiness is due to boredom.
  • The bus was delayed due to heavy snow.
ambitious_ph1lologist
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  • According to magoosh https://gre.magoosh.com/flashcards/grammar/right-or-wrong/the-picnic-was-canceled-due-to-rain, it suggests that the first sentence is wrong. – Idonknow Jun 07 '20 at 02:35
  • I apologise for my opinion based comment, but honestly, I would rather trust four dictionaries that agree with one another (please see CALD, LDOCE, M-W and ODO definitions) rather than one cite saying that due to is a strict noun modifier. Moreover, Ngram sees nothing wrong in using due to instead of because of – ambitious_ph1lologist Jun 07 '20 at 02:47
  • Also Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) shows prevailation of cancelled due to over cancelled because of with a result of 81 over 42 (please see images 1 and 2). – ambitious_ph1lologist Jun 07 '20 at 02:55
  • And examples from COCA: 3 and 4. Seems like that traditionally due to was a strict noun modifier, but modern rules seem to tend toward using due to and because of interchangeably. – ambitious_ph1lologist Jun 07 '20 at 03:03