Improving English

[Destined]

I have a question to the native English speakers of the forum. I am currently writing my PhD thesis and was told by a native speaker in our group that "since" is actually used only in its temporal meaning. In school we learned that it can also be used causally and now I wanted to ask, what you guys think. I usually use it to avoid repeating "because" all the time and other than "since" I don't know that much synonyms. Can you help me?

[OrbWeaver]

That "native speaker" is full of crap. "Since" is frequently used as a synonym of "because".

 

Just avoid "due to the fact that". It's clumsy pretentious waffle that serves no purpose other than to increase the number of words in a sentence.

[VanishedOne]

The statement that 'since' is only ever used temporally is flatly false. 'Since it's a nice day, let's go for a walk' is perfectly natural English.

 

I wonder whether the case that led to this question was more like 'The pen fell since I dropped it,' where my brain would probably go to the temporal sense before contemplating the causal one. (Compare 'as'.)

 

"Why did I do it? Since I wanted to!" would also strike me as unidiomatic.

Edited September 4, 2015 by VanishedOne

[grayman]

'Since' can be both temporal and causal.

 

"I left my home town to go to college. I haven't been back since."

 

"Since the body was found in the driver's seat, we can assume he was the driver."

[Petike the Taffer]

"Since" used as "because of" is perfectly all right, but it's usually used that way in informal conversations or dialogue.

[stumpy]

which english is this, because since american english and british english are sometimes completely different in there meanings. sorry for any bad spellings or anythings else cause I didn't do english at school.

[grayman]

I speak American English.

[Destined]

Thanks for your insights. I personally prefer British English (by choice, my boss prefers American English). My feeling would be, to use "since", when I begin a sentence with it and "because" when it is the second part. Examples: "Since it is so late, I will go home now."; but "I will go home now, because it is so late." In the second case "since" would sound weird to me. But as I said, this has not grammatical background, it is just my sprachgefühl (apparently, this is also the Englih word; who would have thought ).

[demagogue]

There's a slight difference in nuance, at least to me. "Since" still has a temporal nuance used in the 'because' sense, because it refers to an occassion of co-occurance. B happens after A, so we know we'll see B since we saw A. But A didn't have to cause B. You could substitute it with "Given the occassion that..." Whereas "because" has the nuance of literal causation. A causes B. So B happened because of A.

 

You see it in grayman's example. The occassion of the guy being in the driver's seat is how we know he's the driver, so 'since' is the better term. But it didn't literally cause him to drive, so you wouldn't use 'because' as readily. His actual driving caused him to be the driver, which is how you'd use 'because'.

 

They can overlap in use, but there's still that difference in nuance, and sometimes you'd use one but not the other.

 

While we're at it, remember you use "many" with countable nouns (synonyms), not "much".

[Destined]

Thanks, I will keep that in mind

 

While we're at it, remember you use "many" with countable nouns (synonyms), not "much".

 

 

Yeah, I usually know the difference. But I don't always reread, what I write here, which is why some slips happen... Reminds me also of Game of Thrones: "Well, that makes less enemies for us." "Fewer. Fewer enemies." (same reasoning wiht countability)

[OrbWeaver]

You see it in grayman's example. The occassion of the guy being in the driver's seat is how we know he's the driver, so 'since' is the better term. But it didn't literally cause him to drive, so you wouldn't use 'because' as readily. His actual driving caused him to be the driver, which is how you'd use 'because'.

 

I agree with your analysis of the nuance that "because" expresses a stronger causal relation in some circumstances, but I don't agree that "because" would be unsuitable for this particular example, because the sentence is:

 

"Since the body was found in the driver's seat, we can assume he was the driver."

 

The causal relationship is being expressed between the location of the body and our act of assuming that he was the driver, not the fact that he was the driver, so "because" would be perfectly fine in this instance.

 

A case where in my opinion "since" would be more suitable is something like:

 

"Since you are not going to the party, will you be studying this evening?"

 

It would be unnatural to use "because" in this example: you study because you want to pass your exams, not because you are not going to a party. Instead we use "since" to express a consequential relationship between a fact and possible future outcome that is weaker than direct causality.

[demagogue]

I thought of that first point you made later too, but my post was already long & I didn't want to keep adding stuff. Well I was just taking grayman's sentence anyway. Your 2nd example gets right to the nub of it.

 

Language has so many little nuances. There's always more to say it feels like. Hope you English learners are getting something from this.

[Destined]

Well, I definitely do. That is exactly why I brought it up in the first place.