'Because' and 'Since'

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'Because' and 'Since'
Since You Asked...
% b7 O8 }& t) DBy Evan Jenkins
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4 Y* E$ |6 E; T( V; O: @André E. Maillho, managing editor of Gambit, an alternative weekly in New Orleans, noticed that "you, like millions of other Americans, tend to use the word 'since' to convey a causative relationship," and added, "An old editor once scolded me to differentiate between 'since' and 'because' and it's been a reflex ever since...What's your take?"

That old editor once had a fairly numerous following, but the words are usually interchangeable. A problem can arise ̬ maybe the reason for the old editor's edict—if "since" can be read mistakenly in its time sense: "Since she called him a fool, he has stopped campaigning" is ambiguous, for example. When there's no trap of that kind, "since" means "because" and vice versa.
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CJR