| 词组 | prefer |
| 释义 | prefer Prefer is most often used in constructions that do not involve prepositions. However, when it is used to compare two things in the same sentence, the second, especially if it is a noun or pronoun, is usually introduced by to: • Movement is always to be preferred to inaction — Norman Mailer, Advertisements for Myself, 1959 • ... monarch butterflies, who prefer them to any other flower —Eleanor Perenyi, Green Thoughts, 1983 • ... he prefers sweaters and slacks to suits —Current Biography, July 1965 Sometimes other prepositions are used. The OED notes above and before as being used formerly (George Washington used before). Over is occasionally used: • ... but who, nevertheless, are preferred over the A type or the D type —William J. Reilly, Life Planning for College Students, 1954 This construction is especially frequent in advertisements for products where doctors or housewives or members of some other group will be said to prefer one brand over all others. Numerous commentators point out that when the two things compared are represented by infinitive phrases, there can arise a problem of too many tos: "prefers to eat to to starve." The solution hit upon by writers facing this problem has often been to use rather than in place of to: • ... prefer to leave rather than to subvert their values —Shelly Halpern, Change, November-December 1969 Rather than is also used when the to or even the whole infinitive is understood: • ... prefers to stand rather than sit —Current Biography, September 1964 • ... preferred to preach in it rather than in his mother tongue —Dictionary of American Biography, 1936 Only rarely do we find the rather omitted before the than: • ... he would have preferred to fast than carry it — Margaret Drabble, The Needle's Eye, 1972 When the two things compared are expressed in gerunds (sometimes with the second -ing form deleted) we find both to and rather than: • He preferred living like a Grecian, to dying like a Roman —J. W. Croker, 20 July 1815, in The Croker Papers, 1884 (OED) • It seems we prefer reading magazines to books — John Barkham, Saturday Rev., 13 Feb. 1954 • ... the rich preferred spending rather than investing — Times Literary Supp., 2 July 1971 Beginning at least as early as Vizetelly 1906 there has been criticism of constructions with than and rather than. The critics have been far from unanimous in their opinions. Some condemn both than and rather than; some recommend rather than and condemn than; none give reasons for their opinions. Plain than seems to have no defenders and to be rarely used (the only genuine example besides our own that we have seen is in Reader's Digest 1983). And, to be truthful, plain than does sound awkward, perhaps simply from its unfamiliarity. See also rather than 2. |
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