Rather than or instead of?

[samichange]

Can we use the idioms- rather than and instead of interchangeably?

I would choose football rather than cricket.

OR

I would choose football instead of cricket.

To me, both sound the same and mean in lieu of as far as the meaning of the above two sentences is concerned.

[jlucero]

Mostly, yes. There's some debate about the small change in meaning between the two- showing a preference vs a replacement, but I doubt the GMAT would test you on that.

The major difference is the ending of the expressions: of vs than. Of is a preposition which must be followed by a noun or noun phrase. Than has more leeway about what follows.

Here's a more thorough explanation if you're interested.

rather-than-accept-the-conventional-wisdom-that-the-earth-t1177.html