grammar question

by panta rhei

Posted to Feedback on 2003-01-08 10:04:00

Parent message is 352117
totally unrelated to the content of your post, yet i’d appreciate an explanation:

i have often noticed people saying “I would rather if we did not…”, as you did.

this confuses me. i would rather… do what? where’s the verb?

i know what i means…: ‘i would prefer if we did not…’, but i don’t get the grammar.

is ‘rather’ used as a verb here?

‘ i would rather sleep’… ‘i’d rather not see you…’ – all fine. there’s a verb.

my question:

can rather be used not only as an adverb, but also as a verb?

i’ll be happy if someone could explain that to me.

and sorry for the deviation from feedback!

thank you.