Question

Which sentence is grammatically correct?
1. Candy thinks he should have shot the dog himself, rather than let a stranger shoot him, since it was his dog.
2. Candy thinks he should have shot the dog himself, rather than letting a stranger shoot him, since it was his dog.

Answer 1

# 2 SOUNDS CORRECT TO ME....

Answer 2

thanks, hopefully I'll get more responses from a lot of different people too just so I can be sure that's 2's the right one.

Answer 3

#2 is correct, but do you know why? It's called parallel construction.

In the first clause, the verb is "should have shot" so in the second (and it had better be parallel because you're setting up a comparison here) the verb needs to be "let" as a shortened form of "should have let" -- get it? You would never say or write "should have letting," right?

=)

Answer 4

right, yeah, that makes sense thank you. I originally had #1, but then I thought that for some reason letting sounded right too. I get it now- thankx!=)