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1) He was expecting a delivery, so he stayed at home in case it arrived.

In the above sentence, I feel some connectivity is missing between "so he stayed at home" and "in case it arrived" and there should be some words between the 2 double quoted phrases.

2) He was expecting a delivery, so he stayed at home as it could arrive.

The above sentence is something I prefer to use.

So, I need to know if I' m wrong in constructing the 2nd sentence. I want some clarity on the 1st sentence as well.

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  • Not an answer, but He was expecting a delivery, so he stayed at home would be fine. The addition of his expectation of the delivery arriving is redundant, because that is what expecting a delivery means.
    – oerkelens
    Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 17:08
  • @oerkelens I understand it. But, is the 1st sentence grammatically correct? I am more concerned about "so he stayed at home in case it arrived"
    – Gt_R
    Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 17:12
  • The first sentence is good, idiomatic English just as it would be spoken or written by a native speaker. Please tell us why you prefer the second sentence.
    – P. E. Dant Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jul 8, 2017 at 19:34
  • @P. E. Dant I am using "as" here to connect 2 clauses unlike the first one.
    – Gt_R
    Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 15:07

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"In case" means "to allow for the possibility that" (Wiktionary).

I would say the first sentence is both more natural and more exact, which is a good combination. One uses "in case" to talk about a possible outcome.

It's certainly possible for "as", "since", or "because" to work alongside the conditional "could" as you used it. But these are all general-purpose ways to indicate causation. That is, they don't make the relationship between the cause and the result explicit.

But "in case" is well-suited to this job: Your subject wants to be prepared for event X, so he does Y in case X happens. No further explanation is needed. There's something satisfying about that.

Here are some more typical uses of "in case":

We should make sure our car windows are rolled up in case it rains overnight.

Take your phone in case you need to reach us.

I applied to three other graduate programs in case I get rejected from my first choice.

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