Re: USAGE: I'd rather (was: Re: Journalists)

As Mark and Jeff said, this is a common construction
in English.

It reminds me of the use of "better" in sentences such
as "I think you'd better go now" analyzed as "It would
be better if you would go now"

--Ph. D.

From: "Mark J. Reed" <markjreed@...>
>
> "I'd rather" is quite common in American English as well.   The word
> "rather" is not a verb but an adverb; that's most obvious in sentences
> like "I'd rather not go", which you can analyze as "Preferably, I
> would not go".  In sentences like "I'd rather that not be true", the
> verb "would" (a form of "will") is being used in its sense of "want"
> or "wish", not as an auxiliary.
>
> On 6/27/07, Jeff Rollin <jeff.rollin@...> wrote
>> In the last episode, (On Wednesday 11 Tamuz 5767 13:33:06), Carsten
>> Becker
>> wrote:
>> > Hi,
>> >
>> > On Wed, 27 Jun 2007 03:17:09 -0700, Sai Emrys <sai@...> wrote:
>> > >For various reasons, I'd rather that not be public information until
>> >
>> >                       ^^^^^^^^^^
>> >
>> > >after the conference.
>> >
>> > I understand what it means, but I've never come across this
>> > construction in
>> > 9 years of studying English at school, except I think in Shakespeare.
>> > Is
>> > this some colloquialism or archaism (like 'methinks' AIUI)? After all,
>> > there does not seem to be a verb "to rather" in English.
>> >
>> > Yours
>> > Carsten
>>
>> I've heard it quite regularly in British English, and certainly use it a
>> lot,
>> though my idiolect may be overly formal. I'd say it (the phrase) is more
>> formal than informal. It may be passing into the "jocular and archaic"
>> phase,
>> as with "methinks".
>>
>> You're right, though - there's no verb "to rather" in English - at least,
>> you
>> can't say "he rathered" or "I saw two birds rathering in the yard
>> yesterday" - such things might be understood (the second as a euphemism,
>> probably, given its similarity to "rogering"), but certainly not
>> "accepted".
>>
>> HTH
>>
>> Jeff
>> --
>> "Please understand that there are small
>> European principalities devoted to debating
>> Tcl vs. Perl as a tourist attraction."
>>
>>                             -- Cameron Laird
>>
>
>
> --
> Mark J. Reed <markjreed@...>

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