Worth a read: the word 'worth'

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. 

Read More