Salem F. answered • 01/17/23
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New to Wyzant
TESOL Certified English Teacher Specializing in Adult Education
Yes, you are correct! The question they're posing is what caused the boy to be stunted, but because that's a clunky phrase and makes the sentence longer than necessary, the speaker opted for "why" instead. Concise language tends to be favored by most people, so if you can shorten a sentence and still keep the same meaning, do it!
Salem F.
That's because "reason" and "cause" are synonyms, and can generally be used interchangeably! There are very few occasions where you would need to specifically use "cause" (most of the time, this is in scientific settings).
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01/17/23
Ethan B.
But when i look in the dictionary, it says "why" means the reason or purpose for which. It doesn't say it mean the cause of an effect. Are people just using "why" wrong? I see it used to mean both reason and cause.01/17/23