Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[sejpdw]

I've read this sentence in a Website.
"Some people prefer to stop for a while rather than going all the way."

In my opinion, that setence is not parallel.
1 and 2 seems to be correct.
What's your opinion?

1. Some people prefer stopping for a while rather than going all the way.
2. Some people prefer to stop for a while rather than go all the way.

[MrPedantic]

Hello Sej

I think your analysis is correct. Native speakers do quite often mix infinitives and gerunds in this way, though. You could say that the gerund gives more of a sense of being "inside" the action, and so makes the sentiment more vivid. In other words, parallelism is sacrificed to immediacy.

By the way, for #1, you might also say:

1a. Some people prefer stopping for a while to going all the way.

(This avoids the slight redundancy of "prefer" + "rather than".)

See you around,
MrP