Learn English – Why can we say “worth more than” but not “expensive more than”

The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL) has a lot to say about worth. It is a little like an adjective and a little like a preposition. I will argue both sides, for your entertainment.

Worth is clearly a preposition, because:

• It requires a noun phrase after it. This is what prepositions are known for. Many adjectives take preposition phrases (afraid of bees, tantamount to surrender) or clauses (mad that you didn’t tell her). Almost none take noun phrases.

• The vast majority of adjectives can be used attributively—that is, in front of a noun they modify. That is what adjectives are known for. But a worth $5 vanilla shake is wrong.

• Consulting my adversary’s points below, I see nothing but desperate gibbering really. “Set off by a comma”? “Fronting”? How about basic syntactic properties?

Worth is clearly an adjective, because:

• There is a simple test that distinguishes adjectives from prepositions extremely well. Adjective phrases set off by a comma at the beginning of a sentence always modify the subject. Preposition phrases sometimes don’t.

  From the beginning, I liked the book. (ok - preposition phrase)

  Consistently excellent, I liked the book. (wrong - adjective phrase must modify subject)

  Worth every penny, I liked the book. (wrong!!)

• Prepositions are often “fronted” in questions and certain other clauses. Worth isn’t.

  From what country did the U.S. purchase the Louisiana Territory in 1803? (ok)

  Worth what was the Louisiana Territory at that time? (wrong)

  They will want the amount for which they could have sold it last May. (ok)

  They will want the amount worth which it was last May. (wrong)

• Consulting my adversary’s points above, I see a disappointing failure to go any deeper than the surface—and a few dirty rhetorical tricks. He knows very well that a worth $5 vanilla shake is wrong for the same reason an afraid of bees child and a willing to chip in uncle are wrong: you just can’t put phrases with post-head dependents in that position. And plenty of adjectives can’t be used attributively at all: an afraid child is wrong too.

CGEL calls worth an adjective, but ultimately I think Cerberus is right. The patterns grammarians detect in language are not inviolable laws. Not every word fits cleanly into the categories.

A 'dozen' is exactly 12, but you can use that for approximation, as well: 'there are around a dozen' or 'approximately a dozen'.

Alternatively, you can just say 'around 10', 'around 15', etc.

You can also say 'over 10' or 'at least 10' which implies that the number is close to 10.