"stay home" vs. "stay at home"

Consider the following:

I'll probably stay at home.

I'll probably stay home.

Is the second sentence still grammatically correct? Is there any difference at all?

Solution 1:

Both are correct. There are instances where they mean the same thing and some instances where they don't.

If you were telling someone that you didn't intend to go out tonight, you could use either.

"Do you want to go with us to a restaurant tonight?"
"No, I think I'll stay home."
"No, I think I'll stay at home."

However, if someone were asking where you were staying, where the answer might be "a hotel" or "a friend's house", you would definitely say "at home".

"Are you going to get a hotel room for the conference?"
"No, I'm going to stay at home."
"No, I'm going to stay home."

(Note that if you did say the struck-through version, that would tend to imply that you weren't going to go to the conference at all.)

However, that "home" is uncommon in that it also functions as an adverb. You can never leave the preposition out with other similar nouns. For example, this is clearly wrong:

"I'll probably stay work."

In that case, you have to create an adverbial prepositional phrase:

"I'll probably stay at work."

Solution 2:

The key question here is whether it is permissible to omit the preposition; I wasn't able to find many references to this other than a business writing instructor who encourages the omission of obvious or superfluous prepositions.

I would suggest that is it permissible to leave it out if the meaning is unchanged and there is no ambiguity introduced.

Solution 3:

I'm an American, but I'll definitely go along with the British and their use of "stay at home". It just sounds grammatically wanting and uneducated to throw away the preposition. One sounds like a hick, so to speak, using "home" as an adverb when it should always be a noun, never an adverb or an adverbial noun. (A former Latin/English teacher, if you please.)

P. S. The word "home" cannot be compared with the word "work" in that their usage is so dissimilar. Never let a good preposition go to waste! (LOL)