I never really gave a deep thought at this but recently a teacher of talked about language and there was an implicit question in it. something like
there is a difference between "rather than" and "instead of" in usage. do you know it??
please help and explain with a few examples.
Best Answer
Let's try some minimal pairs:
I walk rather than run
I walk instead of running
I eat apples rather than oranges
I eat apples instead of oranges
I walk quickly instead of quietly
I walk quickly rather than quietly
I don't really think there's much of a difference, except perhaps
rather than
implies preference whereasinstead of
implies substitution. But that might be nitpicking. And it doesn't seem to apply when using it to coordinate adverbs (last pair).Also, there's a slight difference in the verb forms in the first pair, but there's not really a difference in meaning there.