Grammarly tells me I need to change "to being" to "to be" - Of course the explanation makes sense - The to-infinitive that follows the verb prefers requires the base form. Change being to the base form. But it would make no sense to make such a change in this context. My question to the more experienced writers - do you use grammar checkers? Yes, you do, do you use Grammarly? Yes, I know published authors who do use it. So what do you do? Do you tell Grammarly to ignore these situations? Even if what it tells us is technically correct? Sometimes I feel like the grammar checkers are nothing more than bs and I should just ignore them altogether.
Grammarly needs to run a level-5 diagnostic on its positronic net. That's not an infinitive. It's basically this form: She prefers this to that. Which is just to used in comparison. In your sentence the noun at the end is replaced with a gerund phrase. "Being in the rat race . . ." is a state of being that acts as a noun. There's nothing wrong with that form. I can see why the program got tricked though. (I won't digress explaining it. It would just be a bunch of CFG gibberish.) These things are useful tools. They're nice to have. I certainly look at all the squiggles in my word processor. I use phrase counters and natural language analyzers too, just to see if there are strange repetitions. Once spelling and grammar are squared away, almost all writing problems are some form of misused repetition, which is painfully easy to create in revision. And because you're editing out of order, it's invisible. Very tough to catch . . . Don't trust the program too much though. It's kind of like taking your car to the mechanic. You listen to his opinion, but you never let him write the check.
I don't use any grammar checkers, but I do know grammar. "To being" is right in the example you gave. You could switch the word "to" to "over" and it would also make sense.
I think if we have a thread for every questionable recommendation made by Grammarly, we;d be here for a long time. I tried the free version, I wasn't overly impressed.
I use Grammarly as a proofreader rather than a tool that helps me to correct my grammar. It points out mistakes I understand and would have changed myself had I caught them. Anything else it points out to me is just non-sensical, and I ignore it. I don't think it's actually a good tool for people who need guidance with grammar!
Of course, using "over" just didn't occur to me. Seems something like that would be part of the grammar checker explanation. But maybe I'm wrong about that. At any rate, like you guys, I take what it suggests with a grain of salt.
Your instinct is correct, Chip. But I think I'd just eliminate the words "to being" and make it "She much prefers this to the rat race of the banking industry."
