Tackling More Tricky Word Choices:
As, Because, and Since
The Blue Book of Grammar and Punctuation
Tackling More Tricky Word Choices:
As, Because, and Since
American English is a rich, expressive language. At the same time, it includes words that sometimes appear to be alike but have slight distinctions. Without recognizing those subtleties, we might use one word when we mean another.
As, because, and since are three conjunctions that introduce subordinate clauses (those that cannot stand alone in sentences) connecting a result and a reason. A closer understanding of these words helps us write with greater clarity and emphasis in achieving this.
We use because when we want to focus more on the reason. We use as and since when we wish to center on the result.
Most commonly, the because clause emphasizing the reason ends the sentence; the as or since clause stressing the result starts the sentence.
Examples
Result: She got the promotion over four other candidates.
Reason: She knew the system best.Sentence emphasizing the reason with because clause: She got the promotion over four other candidates because she knew the system best.
Sentence emphasizing the result with as clause: As she knew the system best, she got the promotion over four other candidates.
Sentence emphasizing the result with since clause: Since she knew the system best, she got the promotion over four other candidates.
The placement of the because, as, or since clause can be changed in the sentences above. Some writers might contend that only the shifted because clause maintains effective fluency while the repositioned as and since clauses sound more stilted. Moving the clauses will also change the emphasis by switching the order of the result and the reason.
Because she knew the system best, she got the promotion over four other candidates.
She got the promotion over four other candidates, as she knew the system best.
She got the promotion over four other candidates, since she knew the system best.
Because is more common than as or since in both writing and speaking, suggesting we typically emphasize reasons more than results. As and since also are considered more formal in usage.
Looking at the details of these conjunctions polishes another tool in our quest to be writers of precision and eloquence.
If the article or the existing discussions do not address a thought or question you have on the subject, please use the "Comment" box at the bottom of this page.
I hesitate to use “since” because it can be confused with a time sequence.
“Since she graduated from a large university, Ann landed the promotion.”
Did the promotion happen because she graduated from a large university (maybe 20 years ago), or did it happen just after graduation?
You are correct in that since also has a definition involving time as an adverb (He got the job last year and has held it since), a preposition (It’s been cold since last week), and a conjunction (I’ve seen her once since she moved to Miami). However, since does not always imply time. Within our article, we focus on as, because, and since all as conjunctions that subordinate a clause according to emphasis on a reason or a result. In this context, as and since are interchangeable.
In your example, since functions as a subordinating conjunction that stresses the result. Since and as could therefore be exchanged. At the same time, the sentence as written leaves room for ambiguity, because it could suggest time. For clarity, our recommendation would be to focus on the reason and subordinate with because: Ann landed the promotion because she graduated from a large university.
Because of since‘s secondary meaning involving time, we are considering a follow-up article that would focus on this aspect.
Your article seems to say that “as” and “since” are interchangeable. I always understood there to be a difference between “as” and “since” – that “since” referenced a time factor. In other words, the result was available after (since) something else occurred. Example: Since she learned the system, she became eligible for the promotion. (She wasn’t eligible until after she learned the system.) In your example above, I would only use “as” and not “since” because there is no time component. Is this wrong? Thanks.
Please see our full response to Karla above. In your example, our recommendation would be to focus on the reason and subordinate with because: She became eligible for the promotion because she learned the system.
FINALLY! A lucid distinction between because vs. as/since. As an English and ESL teacher, I usually frame it as because = direct cause and since/as = condition that leads logically to the explanation: Since I’m already at the grocery store, I may as well buy what I’ll need all week.
This is a very good discussion of a subtle distinction. As I am a copy editor, I run into it a lot. “As” and “since” are useful because they don’t stress the reason for something when it isn’t important but the writer wants to indicate briefly the basis for the claim he/she is making. I frequently encounter some of the ambiguity noted above that reflects the temporal connotations of “as” and “since”. In my opinion, this is largely because the subordinate clause is not separated by a comma from the main clause, particularly when “as” is used. For example, “I stopped to fill my prescription as I was walking past the drugstore.” versus “I stopped to fill my prescription, as I was walking past the drugstore.”
It has become a pet peeve of mine, over the years, that the use of the word “as” to begin [or conjuctively connect] a conditional sentence, has become ubiquitous. And many writers today will just continue the use of “as” in conditional sentences throughout their paragraph[s] without apparently considering using “since” or “because” – like they’d been taught to avoid them.
I had been taught in college to use the “Harbrace College Handbook” published by Harcourt, Brace & World in the ’60s [Library of Congress #62-11589] which states “(1) Generally avoid “as” in the sense of “because.” “For” or “since” is usually clearer.”
It’s probably just me but I see a British influence creeping into the American lexicon.
Must a comma always precede as or since when used in the sense mentioned in this article? Would it be incorrect to omit the comma? Thanks.
She got the promotion over four other candidates, as she knew the system best.
She got the promotion over four other candidates, since she knew the system best.
The words as and since are subordinating conjunctions in these examples, meaning they make a clause dependent. That dependent clause must then be completed by an independent clause. We know these subordinate (dependent) clauses would be accompanied by a comma because the clauses can be moved in the sentence.
e.g.
She got the promotion over four other candidates, as she knew the system best.
As she knew the system best, she got the promotion over four other candidates.
“Since,” in this grammatical context, of course has no temporal correlate. But beyond grammar itself, “since” and “as” are not altogether interchangeable in the examples offered, Harbrace College Handbook or not. “As” always seems weaker, while “since” implicitly (or associatively) carries with it an evocation of time’s residue, of accumulation if you like, even as time has no grammatical hold on its use here–so that “since” is more weighted in the notion of the precondition for the consequence, while “as” seems to dispense with the accumulation of that precondition and instead take both cause and consequence as givens in the fact of the very present in which the reason for something’s being the case is advanced; a justifiable explanation in the present in which two clauses, despite one’s grammatically being subordinate, feel more equally weighted than would be the case if “since” were substituted for it). These matters of weighting are encountered elsewhere in English usage: there are always going to be instances (“that” and “which,” to cite one of the most obvious) where stylistic exigencies intentionally shift the balance of meaning in ways that those of “pure” grammar cannot.
As a technical writer and editor, I usually avoid “as” and “since” (in the sense discussed here) because their other meanings can create actual ambiguity as noted above, but also because they can simply lead one’s mind astray while reading the words of a sentence sequentially, even if the intention is clear once you have read the whole sentence.
For instance, if I read “As I was walking down her street…,” I think I am going to hear about something that happened.
When the sentence then ends with “…I decided to stop and see her,” I have to jerk my mind back to the beginning of the sentence and assign the “because” meaning to “as,” then reframe the picture I’d originally half-framed (something is about to happen to the person, such as a dog ran up and bit them) and readjust to the different purpose. This all takes time and creates “noise” in my comprehension.
I want sentences on technical topics to convey their meaning in the shortest amount of time, with the shortest amount of reader effort and distraction.
(I see that my sentence has both problems, because “as I was walking…” could refer to the time the person made the decision, or it could mean “because.”)
Do you have further explanation regarding “as” and “since” here?
Because they are more focused on the result, “as” and “since” are less noticeably distinct from each other than they are from “because,” which amplifies the reason.
If we are to look more closely at nuance, we might say that “since” has a slightly more causative connotation.
As you won’t be at the party, I probably won’t go either.
Since you won’t be at the party, I probably won’t go either.
These sentences are more concerned with the result expressed in the independent clause, but within them, “as” has a subtly softer sense of causation; “since” suggests a nearer link between the reason and the result.