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Hong Kong English:
a personal blog

Worth a read: the word 'worth'

25/3/2015

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Recently [22 March 2015], a columnist in the weekly English column of a local Hong Kong newspaper discussed a common error involving the word ‘worth’.  The writer noted that many Hong Kong English users consider ‘worth’ to be a verb, as in the following sentence:

[1] *This painting worths a lot of money. [INCORRECT
]

The correct way of expressing this sentence in English is:

[2] This painting is worth a lot of money. 

Though the writer was quite right to call this an error, his explanation of why was less convincing. 

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    This blog arises from keeping an eye on English in Hong Kong. I often use signs, notices and advertisements that I see as starting points to write about English issues that commonly challenge Hong Kong writers. 

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