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Anonymous Posted 20 years ago
Grammar

Prefer to/prefer over

I did my English homework yesterday. There was an exercise with empty gaps between words. So there was a sentence "I prefer reading novels ... watching TV" I put word ''over" in the blank space. Today in my English lesson I and my classmates reviewed the exercise. When I read my sentence, my teacher immediately insisted that I was wrong and the only word that fits in there is "to." I already knew that "to" fits in the gap, but I was also confident about "over." I still don't believe that "over" doesn't fit and I want to prove my teacher was wrong. Could you help me or prove me that I was wrong? Thank you.

Janis Strazdins,
Latvia.
  

Top answer

Prefer over is well established and you were correct. query=%22prefer+over%22+&srchst=nyt

— Marius Hancu

  • Prefer over is well established and you were correct.
  • query=%22prefer+over%22+&srchst=nyt
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9 Answers
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Prefer over is well established and you were correct. Tell your teacher to have a look at this link at The New York Times:

http://query.nytimes.com/search/query?query=%22prefer+over%22+&srchst=nyt
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Thanks a lot, I will show her the link Emotion: smile
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HELLO JANIS

PERHAPS MY RESPONSE IS NOT AS "QUICK" I JUST SAW YOUR BLOG.

YOU ARE CORRECT. OVER IS QUITE ALLRIGHT. TO MY MIND, NOTWITHSTANDING THE PURISTS, I THINK WE CAN CONSIDER 'TO' AS MORE COLLOQUIAL AND 'OVER' TO HAVE A HIGHER REGISTER. IN THE END IT ALL COMES DOWN TO PERSONAL PREFERNCE AND SOMETIMES REGIONAL USE.

I AM ALSO A TEACHER AND AS SUCH, I HAVE TO RECOGNIZE THAT NOT ALL
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At one time, Following were the two correct ways of using prefer.

1. I prefer coffee over tea.

2. I prefer to spend the day with you

Then, Some teachers in the United States observed sentences like 2 above, and generalized the usage of "prefer to" even in the comparisons like that shown in sentence 1. So, in the USA pople would not hesitate to say the following
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Even My teacher thinks over is wrong.... i cant find the article you have refered to...pls help
Vivek
Tiruppur-Tamil Nadu-India
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Yes, both are correct "to" and "over". Moreover, in this case "over" sounds even better!
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In British English, 'over' is not natural.
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your teacher is right
sometimes we are using than or to
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I prefer chocolate over vanilla ice cream. Does that mean that you want chocolate on top of your vanilla ice cream or does it mean that you would rather have chocolate ice cream only if the other choice is vanilla ice cream? I prefer chocolate to vanilla makes it clear.
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