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I've read an article and there's a sentence which confuses me:

No matter if your delivery takes place in a home or at the hospital...

If I rewrite it this way:

No matter if your delivery takes place at home or in the hospital ...

is it still correct?

And if so, what's the difference between two of them?

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    They are both acceptable, and, as you are perhaps suggesting, your alternative version would use probably the more natural choice of prepositions. The unmarked version – I'm wondering if there's a subtext, a subtle attempt at persuasion that home delivery ('in' is 'friendlier' than the more clinical 'at') is the better option.
    – Edwin Ashworth
    Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 12:59
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    In a home suggests a midwife. At home suggests the mother.
    – Lambie
    Commented Jun 22, 2016 at 13:45
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    "At home" is a phrase that means the home of the referred person; "in a home" means that the event may happen in one of many homes (of someone else).
    – Nemo
    Commented Jan 1, 2017 at 11:20
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    “In a home” sounds like it’s meant to refer to some kind of sanatorium or facility.
    – Janus Bahs Jacquet
    Commented Jan 29, 2018 at 18:59
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    It would be helpful if the question was edited to indicate that this is about childbirth. Not ordering pizza or getting a mail-order package.
    – John Feltz
    Commented Jun 29, 2018 at 18:43

2 Answers 2

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"at home" means one's own home. If, for example, you were visiting your parents and gave birth in their home, you didn't give birth "at home" but rather "in a home."

And if you are debating now between "in a home" vs. "at a home" because of the circumstance in which you gave birth outside but still on the premises, just know that "at a home," while not ungrammatical, is very bizarre and unnatural phrasing. It's a construct someone not fluent in English would use. When we hear "at a home" we expect there to be more to the phrase: "at a home for the deaf," "at a home my mother was renting out." A commenter above, BoldBen, is spot-on when he points out: 'At a home' implies somewhere other than the patient's own home and suggests an institution of some kind, either a care home, residential home or, if there are any left, maternity home.

The phrasing of "in a home" is much, much more natural.

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There's a couple of problems with "in a home".

"in" means "inside" in this context, whereas "at" means "at the location of" - it's a bit more general. The delivery will be to the door of the house, it won't be inside the house, but it will be at the same location. So, "at" is better than "in".

The next problem is "at a home".

"A home" is too vague - it makes one think of a specific place, eg someone's actual house, but doesn't suggest that it will be the customer's home. Saying "your home" or "the customer's home" fixes this problem by specifying whose home the delivery will be made to.

You can alternately just say "at home", which is also general but is a familiar phrase which people would take to mean "at their own home".

"No matter if your delivery takes place at home or in the hospital ..." seems fine to me.

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    You forget the fact that it might refer to a nurse delivering a baby. In which case, the delivery can happen inside the home of the mother. The fact that the sentence refers to a hospital suggest that it is indeed a midwife, not an item delivery. Also after checking out the link, there's no doubt that it's refering to delivering a baby.
    – MorganFR
    Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 13:16
  • @MorganFR that makes absolute sense - I assumed it was a parcel! That changes the context completely. I wish the OP had made that more clear.
    – Max Williams
    Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 13:27
  • I suppose so, I didn't look at the actual link either before writing my comment, but that certainly would have helped you.
    – MorganFR
    Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 13:29
  • @MorganFR indeed. I'm going to make a fairly lame excuse that I think the link was edited in since, but i'm not sure if that's true.
    – Max Williams
    Commented Jul 22, 2016 at 13:33
  • 'At a home' implies somewhere other than the patient's own home and suggests an institution of some kind, either a care home, residential home or, if there are any left, maternity home.
    – BoldBen
    Commented Sep 20, 2016 at 18:26

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