Hi all,

 

Hope you are all having a nice week. It �s already Thursday and weekend is around the corner anyway.

Yesterday I had a discussion about the above mentioned topic with a colleague of mine. I wonder if you could throw some light onto two doubts that arose during that discussion. To show general preference it is used "I prefer sth./ doing sth TO sth. else/ doing sth.". I have, however, seen several times "I prefer sth./ doing sth. RATHER THAN sth else/ doing sth". I wonder, if  my mind is not playing tricks on me, if that use would be grammatically correct when sitting an official exam or students should stick to the former mentioned structure and use "TO".

On the other hand, in the following structure to show preference in a particular situation: I would prefer to do sth. rather than ..." which verb forms would be acceptable in the second part of the sentence? I mostly use gerund or bare infinitive. I don �t think full infinitive would be wrong though.

 

Hope you can help me out with this question. Thanks in advance. 

Yes, that is an excellent explanation. Keep in mind that many native speakers use incorrect constructions. Recently, a sentence like "You can choose between this or that" has become fairly common in the US. It should be "between this and that". Eventually this mistake will become more common than the correct usage, so it will be accepted as correct.

 

Bruce