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The crux of the matter:

I would rather you cooked tonight. (BrE) = I would rather you cook tonight. (AmE)

Both forms mean the same. It's about the future action.

I would rather you were cooking while I am reading now. (BrE) = I would rather you be cooking while I am reading now. (AmE)

Both forms mean the same. It's about the on-going action in the present

I would rather you had cooked yesterday. (BrE) = I would rather you have cooked yesterday. (AmE)

Both forms mean the same. It's about the action in the past.

Do you agree that these are legit and grammatically correct? Do you use them?

I would rather you cook tonight. (AmE)

I would rather you be cooking while I am reading now.

I would rather you have cooked yesterday. (AmE)

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  • As far as future time is concerned both forms are possible, though the difference is none too sharp. We could say that the preterite acknowledges the possibility that you won't cook tonight; I'm expressing a mere preference, not an expectation. The present tense expresses a lower degree of modality.
    – BillJ
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 9:48
  • The second (present tense) one is effectively telling someone that you want them to cook something now, but is a clumsy and roundabout way of expressing that idea. A much more likely dialogue would be - A: Do you want to help me with the dinner? B: I'd rather you cook while I read (as @PRL75 suggests).
    – Kate Bunting
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 15:05

1 Answer 1

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  • "I would rather you cook tonight. (AmE)"

Correct, but it's just plain English, not location dependent.

  • "I would rather you be cooking while I am reading now."

Completely wrong.

Should be something like:

"I would rather you cook while I read."

  • "I would rather you have cooked yesterday. (AmE)"

Again, completely wrong:

Try: "I wish you had cooked yesterday". (Which is, again, just plain English.)

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6
  • If the present is correct why is the rest not? It's not logical. I have found this example in googe books. 1 Come on, Dr. Nurenberg,” a dejected student once told me when I had caught him cheating, and told him that I would rather he have earned a B on his own best efforts than an A based on dishonesty. (It seems this is written by en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Nirenberg
    – user1425
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 10:27
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    Well, your quoted example is definitely wrong. it should be "rather he had earned" It looks as if the person who wrote it didn't proof read the sentence, because it's an extremely basic error. The other examples are so muddled that you'd need a whole grammar tense course to explain everything that's going on.
    – PRL75
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 10:32
  • Maybe, I don't know. Here is another example "We very much would rather he have been tried and sentenced to the death penalty. His final judgment is yet to come." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 1998 Is it also a typo?
    – user1425
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 10:46
  • Here is another example from The Victoria Advocate newspaper "I'd much rather he be doing the job than me" And one more "Her son gets "scrapes and bruises" from skateboarding, but she'd rather he be doing that then sitting inside all of the time" Harlan Daily Enterprise
    – user1425
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 10:55
  • @user1425 "{x] be doing [y]" is a perfectly correct construct. The example from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 1998 is just illiterate. That doesn't look like a simple typo.
    – PRL75
    Commented Nov 6, 2022 at 11:04

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