# It is worth mention that / It is worth mentioning that



## marsbeing

Hello folks,

Of the two sentences below, which one is correct?

It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer.

It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer.


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## Andygc

"It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer." is a correct but somewhat outdated way of saying this. 

"It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer." is the much more common form of this sentence.


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## marsbeing

<< Response to deleted post. >>

@Andygc.
Thanks for your very useful explanation. One more question: does "mentioning" have to take an object? The dictionary says "mention" is an transitive verb.


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## Andygc

The sentence is incomplete without something that has to be mentioned. If you make a statement "It is worth mentioning" the thing to be mentioned must be stated, as in your example. If you have previously stated it then you can refer back to it. For example: "He is also a very experienced writer. That is worth mentioning."


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## Packard

I would be OK with "It is worth a mention..."


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## Thomas1

"It is worth it to mention..."


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## Andygc

Yes, Packard, the deleted post had this link, which includes that form:
It's worth to mention versus It's worth mentioning
There's also:
the book is worth reading/ worthy of mention. in which sound shift rejects "worth mention". I was surprised to see that because I have seen "worth mention" quite often. I might as well add a visit to a Google ngram for all three forms. I was surprised to find that "it is worth a mention" has been the least popular. I did it again with the mentioning form removed. It seems that "it is worth a mention" is quite recent (1950s).


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## Andygc

Thomas1 said:


> "It is worth it to mention..."


Sorry, Thomas1, but no. I think you'll have trouble finding valid examples of that. There are none in the Google ngram database.


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## Thomas1

Andygc said:


> Sorry, Thomas1, but no. I think you'll have trouble finding valid examples of that. There are none in the Google ngram database.


Here are some samples of "worth it to [+verb]" from the British National Corpus:_It's just not worth it to get so angry.
Will the event be worth it to them?
But it would all be worth it to see them settled and thriving in their new home.
Anne, who's forty one, admits things can get tight but it's worth it to be surrounded by so many loving children.
_​
A sample of "it is worth it to mention" from a book on Google Books:
It is worth it to mention that when Pres. Clinton decided to send U.S. troops to Somalia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, [...]
http://books.google.pl/books?id=gjx...wBw#v=onepage&q="worth it to mention"&f=false​ 
A comment by a native American English speaker:





GreenWhiteBlue said:


> I suspect that in the first sentence  given by przemo in the original post, what we have is an incorrect  transcription of a spoken sentence.  It is incorrect and unnatural to  say "... _it is worth to mention as well_...", but it would be correct and natural to say "..._it is worth* it* to mention..._".  I suspect that the "_it_" was simply not heard because of the following "t" sound in "to".


For more opinions from speakers of other variants of English, I recommend reading the whole thread.


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## marsbeing

Thanks everybody. Your comments are very helpful, especially Andygc's!


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## Andygc

Thomas1, it was a bit of a struggle finding that book (The Hypocrisy of Hollywood: How the People in Hollywood Hurt the Causes They Try to Champion by Andra Gault) as your link to Google Books Poland didn't work for me. When I got to the book, it was pretty obvious that Andra Gault doesn't use standard English and is probablg not a native English speaker (although all things might be possible). Part of the book can be read here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Hypocrisy-Hollywood-People-Champion-ebook/dp/B0057YJ26W. I'd go so far as to suggest that her use of English is poor and the half dozen pages of the book I have looked at are barely readable.

I didn't say that you can't have "it is worth it" followed by an infinitive, I said "it is worth it to mention that ..." is not normal English. The phrase "worth it to mention" does not appear in the Google ngram, the British National Corpus or the Corpus of Contemporary American English. I think you should accept that it is not normal English usage.

PS. If you want us to read the thread you have quoted, how about giving us a link?

PPS





			
				Random selections of Andra Gault's prose said:
			
		

> Considering that people are well known in Hollywood and have money, that want to travel to places that are nice and that give the privacy that they need so they do not get bombarded by strangers who want their attention for something.
> 
> The items that are put into the swag are usually top of the line products in which there was a certain amount of trouble getting.
> 
> It is funny that with “Avatar” James Cameron decided to get all into the environment considering other things related to him that would show otherwise.
> 
> Therefore, the Author has try to foresee the arguments being made by the Reader and have come up with her own arguments in response to the Reader’s arguments.


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## Packard

There are some indications that Gault's book was published direct-to-e-book.


First there is no exact page count listed.
Second, there is no hard cover book edition listed (anywhere that I could find).
Third, there is no paperback book edition listed (anywhere that I could find).

A Google search does not show any reviews on this book, so I am thinking that it was published directly to e-book format. Amazon.com offers that service. I believe that for a fee they will design the front cover. They might even offer a fee-based editing service. I really don't know. But a good editor would have flagged many of the sentences that I read--or maybe I am being over-critical. In any case it is not certain that this book received professional editing.

Except for books that are vanity published, all book writers benefit from the careful editing of a professional editor. I suspect that even the most respected novelists would seem less so without that benefit.


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## Thomas1

Andygc said:


> Thomas1, it was a bit of a struggle finding that book (The Hypocrisy of Hollywood: How the People in Hollywood Hurt the Causes They Try to Champion by Andra Gault) as your link to Google Books Poland didn't work for me. When I got to the book, it was pretty obvious that Andra Gault doesn't use standard English and is probablg not a native English speaker (although all things might be possible). Part of the book can be read here: http://www.amazon.com/The-Hypocrisy-Hollywood-People-Champion-ebook/dp/B0057YJ26W. I'd go so far as to suggest that her use of English is poor and the half dozen pages of the book I have looked at are barely readable.


Here's the whole sentence whose part I copied from Google results (I didn't read anything more than that):_It is worth it to mention that when  Pres. Clinton decided to send U.S. troops to Somalia, Bosnia and  Herzegovina, and Kosovo, there was not a great deal of protests from the  public over him sending the troops.
_​It begins a new paragraph. Is this particular sentence "barely readable"?




Andygc said:


> I didn't say that you can't have "it is worth it" followed by an infinitive, I said "it is worth it to mention that ..." is not normal English. The phrase "worth it to mention" does not appear in the Google ngram, the British National Corpus or the Corpus of Contemporary American English. I think you should accept that it is not normal English usage.
> 
> PS. If you want us to read the thread you have quoted, how about giving us a link?


I'd gladly do that, but:
1) The contribution of a native speaker I quoted in my previous message says something different:


GreenWhiteBlue said:


> I suspect that in the first sentence  given by przemo in the original post, what we have is an incorrect  transcription of a spoken sentence.  It is incorrect and unnatural to  say "... _it is worth to mention as well_...", but it would be correct and natural to say "..._it is worth* it* to mention..._".  I suspect that the "_it_" was simply not heard because of the following "t" sound in "to".


[Colour mine.]

PS: The link is already there in my last message (post#9). There's a little icon (two triangles in a dark blue rectangular) next to the user's name. If you click on it, it will redirect you to the source. Just in case, I'm also giving a direct link: http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?p=11020264#post11020264

2) I was in a very similar situation to the one found in the thread I've just mentioned (worth to do vs. worth doing) a long time ago, and was also corrected in the same way by a native American English speaker.

3) I didn't take long to find these through a Google search:
It is also worth it to mention the Corrimal U10’s won their Pre Season  Comp. Congrats to the boys and to coaches Norm Price and Craig Trebel.
http://corrimalcc.nsw.cricket.com.au/pageitem.aspx?id=84782&id2=1&eID=1578&entityID=​

[A:] a) It's worth to mention

[B:] a) can be fixed --> It's worth it to mention 
- _It's worth it to mention that Moomphas is new to this forum.

_[A:] Thanks But after "worth" is always a verb in continous tense?

[B:] I'm not a grammar expert.  But "worth it to" sounds OK to me (a native speaker) [...]

http://forum.dict.pl/viewtopic.php?t=11639&view=next​[I quoted relevant fragments of a discussion on a language forum.]​

I feel that it is worth it to mention that the lead vocal of "Jack Straw" was originally sung only by Bob Weir.
http://artsites.ucsc.edu/GDead/agdl/jstraw.html​

I'm not trying to be deliberately argumentative, but clearly, something doesn't add up here. So what makes "it is worth it to mention" not normal English?


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## dreamlike

Thomas1 said:


> I'm not trying to be deliberately argumentative, but clearly, something doesn't add up here. So what makes "it is worth it to mention" not normal English?


Hello Thomas. 

I think part of the issue might be the fact that "It's worth mentioning" has become some entrenched in some speakers' minds that any other way of saying it will be frowned upon by them. I'm struggling to understand what's wrong with "it's worth it to mention" in terms of grammar, probably it's grammaticaly fine, but it does sound off even to my non-native ears. And it's certainly not frequent.


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## Chasint

Andygc said:


> "It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer." is a correct but somewhat outdated way of saying this.
> 
> "It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer." is the much more common form of this sentence.


As a great fan of Google ngram, I did the following search:


*Google ngram: *worth mentioning,worth mention,worth it to mention
https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...;,worth mentioning;,c0;.t1;,worth mention;,c0

The resulting graph shows that -
"worth mention" is not particularly old-fashioned. It has never been in fashion. However it remains in use right up to today. 
"worth it to mention" does not appear at all
"worth mentioning" has always been the most frequently used if we go back to the year 1700. In 2008 it was roughly 50 times more popular than "worth mention"


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## Andygc

Thomas1 said:


> Is this particular sentence "barely readable"?
> 
> I'm not trying to be deliberately argumentative, but clearly, something doesn't add up here. So what makes "it is worth it to mention" not normal English?


It is the book that is barely readable, not an individual sentence. It has major errors of syntax and grammar (and the content is pretty dire, too).

I have already provided you with the information that this structure does not exist in the Google ngram database, or in the two principal corpora of modern English. You can check that for yourself. What more evidence do you want that it is not normal English?

PS dreamlike has a point. Things may be grammatical, but abnormal usage. That is what lay behind the disagreement in this thread: The flight’s delay was notified [notify in passive]


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## Andygc

Biffo. I suggest you go back to my post #7, read it, and follow the links. I've already described the relative popularity of "worth mentioning" and "worth mention" and I have never suggested that "worth mention" has ever been 'in fashion'. If you take the trouble to look more carefully you will see that "worth mention" appeared in the 1840s, had various peaks of use and then faded again to become only slightly more popular than "worth a mention". Its use is certainly dated and is now rare. Whether you will accept that as 'old-fashioned' I know not, but I think it a fair description.


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## Chasint

Having come back to this thread after a little break I think that "It is worth mention." is simply an error - a  confused mixture of "It is worth mentioning" and "It is worthy of mention."

I presume that is why it scrapes along at the bottom of the list in Google ngram as shown below.

Google ngram: _worth mentioning,worth mention,worthy of mention
_https://books.google.com/ngrams/gra...,worth mention;,c0;.t1;,worthy of mention;,c0


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## WildWest

I have never heard a bare verb used right after the word worth, but I can't say a single word about the incorrectness of it. I will just keep preferring the form "worth doing". 

This subject is worth talking about, though.


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## Andygc

Biffo said:


> Having come back to this thread after a little break I think that "It is worth mention." is simply an error - a  confused mixture of "It is worth mentioning" and "It is worthy of mention."


A statement for which you have no shred of evidence.


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## Chasint

Andygc said:


> A statement for which you have no shred of evidence.


It is worth thinking about.

Examples

It is worth thinking about.
It is worth think about.

It is worth doing. 
It is worth do.

It is worth looking at.
It is worth look at.

It is worth seeing.
It is worth see.

It is worth mentioning.
It is worth mention.

What's the difference?

___________________________________________________________________
Note

Contrast the above examples with the following:

It is worth looking.
It is worth a look.

It is worth mentioning.
It is worth a mention.


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## Andygc

The difference is that "it is worth mention" has been used by a number of educated, literate authors, as can be discovered by a search through Google Books.


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## Chasint

Andygc said:


> The difference is that "it is worth mention" has been used by a  number of educated, literate authors, as can be discovered by a search  through Google Books.


Even educated people make mistakes.  You haven't addressed my reasoning at all. 

"Worth a mention" makes sense. "Worth mentioning" makes sense.  I can parse those to my own satisfaction.

The crucial question for me is: How do you parse the sentence "It is worth mention"?

I am genuinely interested because I can't see a valid way to do it.


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## Schimmelreiter

As for _It is worth mention_​, there's the phrase _to make mention of something_, so the use of the noun _mention_ without the indefinite article exists in at least one other phrase.


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## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> As for _It is worth mention_​, there's the phrase _to make mention of something_, so the use of the noun _mention_ without the indefinite article exists in at least one other phrase.


I have no problem with that, it is a different case. I can demonstrate as follows:

*A.*
He made mention of it. 
He made mentioning of it. 

This case works with the uncountable noun but not the gerund.

*B.*
It is worth mention. 
It is worth mentioning. 

This case works with the gerund (and, I say, not with the uncountable noun).

Do you agree there is a difference?


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## kalamazoo

Here's an example of 'worth mention" from a book review in the NY Times in 1989: Still, in honor of this anniversary, the end of our bicentennial observations, there are three children's books worth mention. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/books/children-s-books-767089.html


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## Chasint

kalamazoo said:


> Here's an example of 'worth mention" from a book review in the NY Times in 1989: Still, in honor of this anniversary, the end of our bicentennial observations, there are three children's books worth mention. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/books/children-s-books-767089.html


Thanks. However my argument is that this author and others are making a careless grammatical error as a result of thoughtlessly confusing two other expressions. This usage is comparatively rare.  I am asking for a valid grammatical justification for the sentence.

I have already explained why it doesn't work in my previous post. I am hoping someone will argue with my reasoning rather than just give isolated examples.


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## WildWest

kalamazoo said:


> Here's an example of 'worth mention" from a book review in the NY Times in 1989: Still, in honor of this anniversary, the end of our bicentennial observations, there are three children's books worth mention. http://www.nytimes.com/1989/04/23/books/children-s-books-767089.html



I guess the whole problem is arising from mishearing the sentence and it leads us to one of the earlier interpretations of Biffo's. In this case, we have only two possibilities:

It's worth mentioning 

It's worthy of mention 

Of course, I'm a non-native and not able to dig up too much after some point but that's what I think.


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## Schimmelreiter

Let's take _consideration _and _to consider_.

Both these sentences are correct:
_This is worth consideration.
This is worth considering.

_With _mention _having a dual role as noun and verb, the above are similar to these sentences:
_This is worth mention.
This is worth mentioning.

_bearing in mind that _mention_, like _consideration_, need not be used with an indefinite article _(to make mention of something)._


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## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> Let's take _consideration _and _to consider_.
> 
> Both these sentences are correct:
> _This is worth consideration.
> This is worth considering.
> 
> _With _mention _having a dual role as noun and verb, the above are similar to these sentences:
> _This is worth mention.
> This is worth mentioning.
> 
> _bearing in mind that _mention_, like _consideration_, need not be used with an indefinite article _(to make mention of something)._


You make an interesting point. Again I say that this is not comparing like with like.

1. Let us take "to be worth" in its most literal sense. For example, "This information is worth five pounds." The implication is that we are willing to pay five pounds to a person or organisation and receive some information in return.

2. Now let us extend the meaning. We talk about paying attention.  "This book is worth my attention." The implication is that we pay attention to the book and receive literary enjoyment from it in return.

3. A similar idiom applies to consideration. We give our consideration. "This book is worth my consideration."  We give our consideration to the book in return for the informational value it provides.

4. The problem comes when we try to use "mention".  "This book is worth my mention." (??). I pay mention to this book. (??) I give mention to this book. (??) None of these work in English. We cannot offer 'mention' in return for something we desire. Therefore 'mention' has no worth. We might say to the author, "I am addressing some students next week, I will give your book *a* mention."  We cannot in my estimation say " "I am addressing some students next week, I will give your book mention." Nobody says this. It is just wrong.

I hope that answers your point.


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## Andygc

Biffo's claim (that this is an error) is based on his interpretation of an ngram.





Biffo said:


> I presume that is why it scrapes along at the bottom of the list in Google ngram as shown below.


We could apply the same argument to "worth a mention", since that really does scrape along the bottom 





Andygc said:


> I did it again with the mentioning form removed. It seems that "it is worth a mention" is quite recent (1950s).


Thus we have an expression which has a long pedigree (since the 1840s) which has been used by many literate writers. It is much less comonly used than other expressions and is, therefore an error. On the other hand, we have another expression which has a very short pedigree (since the 1950s) which is even less commonly used by writers, but which is not an error. Is that a convincing argument?

"Mention" here is a noun. "Worth mention" is a phrase. It functions as an adjective. Hence "it is worth mention". What is worth mention? That he is also a very experienced writer.

Hence we have "It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer."

Compare this with the identical structure (using an adjective rather than an adjectival phrase) "It is apparent that he is also a very experienced writer."


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## Chasint

Andygc said:


> Biffo's claim (that this is an error) is based on his interpretation of an ngram...


I see three main points of contention with Andygc's last post. I hope thread readers will bear with me if I deal with each separately.

*Point 1.*


> Biffo's claim (that this is an error) is based on his interpretation of an ngram.


 That is not true. Examining what I said in #18, it is clear that my argument was unformed at that point and based on my undisclosed thoughts strengthened by the observation that it looked like a hybrid of two other phrases. I was dipping my toe in the water so to speak in order to see whether others agreed.  I then commented that the ngram trace might be a result of this 'error', not that it proved there was an error.  My real evidence has appeared in later posts.

I apologise if I seem to be nitpicking but I am attempting to make my argument against "worth mention" as precise and thorough as possible.  I'm being prescriptive but occasionally a prescriptive approach to grammar is important (my opinion).

Note: Later, when I address one of the other points I shall indeed use ngram evidence in support of my argument. I just haven't done so yet.


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## Chasint

Andygc said:


> ..."Mention" here is a noun. "Worth mention" is a phrase. It functions as an adjective. Hence "it is worth mention". What is worth mention? That he is also a very experienced writer.
> 
> Hence we have "It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer."
> ...


*Point 2.*

I can't see the force of this argument. Let me substitute the word 'rabbit'.

"Rabbit"... is a noun. "Worth rabbit" is a phrase. It functions as an adjective. Hence "it is worth rabbit"... etc. 

Am I being frivolous? No I am not. The fact that "mention" is a noun does not give weight to the idea that "worth mention" is a valid adjectival phrase. Andygc's argument assumes part of the very thing that it is attempting to prove, namely that "worth mention" is correct.

To be crystal clear, I am not simply objecting to the phrase "It is worth mention"  (which seems more ridiculous every time I see it)  I am also objecting to the collocation "worth mention."  In almost any context that I can imagine it is meaningless. I gave some of my reasoning in #30  point 4.

______________________________________________________________________
Note: There may be exceptional, artificial contexts where "worth mention" makes sense even to me.


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## e2efour

Can we not agree that _worth mention_ is a rare phrase, although it may have been used more often in the past? I have never heard it, although I have seen _worth a mention.

_Whatever its status, it can hardly be recommended to the OP.


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## Chasint

e2efour; I remind you of the original question:





marsbeing said:


> Hello folks,
> 
> Of the two sentences below, which one is correct?
> 
> It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer.
> 
> It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer.


We were not asked which sentence is preferable in modern day English, we were asked which one of the sentences is correct. That is where the disagreement lies. Andygc says the first sentence is correct. I say it is not correct.

_____________________________________________________
Note
Andygc's main argument rests on the phrase having been used by a number of educated literate authors.  This is a descriptive approach to grammar. However he also thinks the phrase is grammatically and semantically acceptable.

My main argument is that the phrase is sufficiently ungrammatical and  aesthetically repugnant that it is a case where prescriptivism should overrule descriptivism. I also think that by using the phrase the authors in question have shown a chink in their literacy and good judgment by propagating a hybrid phrase that doesn't make sense.

I'm sure Andygc will correct me if I have misrepresented his point of view.


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## Schimmelreiter

Biffo said:


> "It is worth mention." is simply an error - a confused mixture of "It is worth mentioning" and "It is worthy of mention."


Given the fact that _It is worthy of mention _(phrase: _to be worthy of something_) is correct,
_It is worth mention_ (phrase: _to be worth something_) is correct, too.


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## wandle

I agree with *Schimmelreiter* that '*x* is worth mention' is a valid phrase, equivalent to '*x* is worthy of mention'.
However, I would not use or recommend it in an introductory phrase, in place of, for example,  'It is worthy of mention that ...'
I would confine it to an unemphatic context such as the end of a concluding sentence: adding that some minor point is also worth mention.


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## Andygc

Indeed,  my main argument rests on the phrase having been used by a wide range of authors and, indeed, before the earliest mention in the ngram I linked to earlier. They include Prof Simon Swain of Warwick University (published by Oxford University Press 1996), Giraldus Cambrensis in approx 1200 (Cambridge University Press),  Justin Harvey Smith published in 1903, Prof Samantha Kelly of Rutgers published 2003, Ernest Shackleton in his account of his last voyage, Prof Stephanie Trigg (Professor of English Literature and Head of the English and Theatre Program, University of Melbourne, Australia) and John Pinkerton (Scottish antiquarian 1758-1826). It was also used in The Constitutional History of England: A Course of Lectures by Frederic William Maitland and Herbert Albert Laurens Fisher (1908), and in Leigh Hunt's London Journal of 1834.

I'm inclined to the view that this erudite group, and many more, chose to write "worth mention" as an adjectival phrase and did not make a mistake. I do not consider it ungrammatical. That Biffo finds it "aesthetically repugnant" is as irrelevant to this thread as are rabbits.

PS Ref wandle's post which appeared while I wrote. The authors I have mentioned did not use it to point to minor points. They used it to point to important points in their writing or occasionally used it negatively as in "it is not worth mention".


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## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> Given the fact that _It is worthy of mention _(phrase: _to be worthy of something_) is correct,
> _It is worth mention_ (phrase: _to be worth something_) is correct, too.


I'm glad you brought that up. It is vital to my argument.

"to be worthy of something" does not necessarily mean "to be worth something".

Example

My car is worth £5,000.  This refers to the amount that I would be willing to accept if I decided to sell the vehicle.

My car is worthy of £5,000.  Depending on context, this could refer to the amount I am willing to spend on the car to keep it in good shape.  (Maybe it is a very valuable car).


The above examples demonstrate that "worth X" and "worthy of X" are not necessarily equivalent in meaning. I accept that sometimes they can be. However 'sometimes' is not a sufficient reason to claim that "worthy of mention" and "worth mention" are equivalent.  This could be one of the exceptions.


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## Schimmelreiter

Biffo said:


> The above examples demonstrate that "worth X" and "worthy of X" are not necessarily equivalent in meaning.


Of course they are not. I didn't say they were. We are discussing correctness ("grammaticality").


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## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> Of course they are not. I didn't say they were. We are discussing correctness ("grammaticality").


Thanks for that. It is a useful reminder for me that I must distinguish between syntax and semantics.  The problem is that if we argue purely from grammar, we can say all sorts of nonsense, for example _"This 24 carat solid-gold bracelet is made entirely of cheese."_  For me the  collocation "worth mention" is just as nonsensical.  Unfortunately, in pure unadulterated grammatical terms it cannot be refudiated* but that doesn't make it a sensible thing to say except as a deliberate provocation.

I wonder if we can find a mutually acceptable middle ground concerning what is grammar and what is meaning?
______________________________________________
* *refudiate*: named the Oxford American Dictionary's word of the year for 2010
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment...cognises-mangled-palinism-20101116-17uvt.html


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## Edinburgher

In my worthless opinion,  "it is worth mention" is perfectly meaningful and perfectly grammatical, irrespective of whether or not it has found favour amongst respected authors.

I cannot understand on what basis Biffo believes it to be ungrammatical.  In this expression, "mention" functions as a mass noun, and the collocation "worth mention" is no more nonsensical than is the structurally equivalent "it is worth money".

The basic meaning is identical to "it is worth mentioning" and also to "it is worth *a* mention".  In the latter, _mention_ is of course a count noun, but I see no reason why the indefinite article cannot be dropped and _mention_ thus be made into a mass noun, because _mention_ can function as both a mass noun and a count noun, unlike _money_, which only works as a mass noun, or _fortune_, which (at least with _worth_, usually) only works as a singular count noun.

_It is worth a fortune 
It is worth fortune 
It is worth a money 
It is worth money 
It is worth a mention  (it deserves to be given a mention)
It is worth mention  (it deserves that mention should be made of it)
_


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## Chasint

That is not worthless at all. It is the best challenge so far. It also helps me to clarify my thinking. I shall pick up on one of your examples - money.

I claim that

(a) _It is worth money_ means _Its value is measurable in money._  EDIT - As a result of reading the following post I realise this definition is not accurate. I have now adopted the alternative definition suggested.

(b) _It is worthy of money_  means _It is deserving of money._

Both of the above statements are meaningful but the meanings are different. Do you agree?

I now extend this to 'mention'.

(c) _It is worth mention_ means_ Its value is measurable in mention._

(d) _It is worthy of mention_ means _It is deserving of mention._

This time, both statements have some kind of meaning. However only (d) has an acceptable* meaning. (c) has the problem that 'mention' appears to be some kind of currency which can be used to pay for things.

_______________________________________________________
* I mean acceptable to me of course. I hope that I have persuaded you of the same.


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## Schimmelreiter

_It is worth money _means _It is worth paying money for._
_It is worth mention_ means _It is worth making mention of._


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## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> _It is worth money _means _It is worth paying money for._
> _It is worth mention_ means _It is worth making mention of._


Your two statements do not parallel each other and therefore you are not comparing like with like. Do you not see that _"paying X for"_ and _"making X of" _are quite different in meaning?


Here are parallel versions:


(i) _It is worth money _means _It is worth paying money for._
(ii) _It is worth mention_ means _It is worth paying mention for.
_
I think you can see the problem. Although (ii) has a meaning, it is not the one intended by people who use the expression.




Note: In (i) I concede that your first definition is better than mine so I use that.


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## Edinburgher

Biffo said:


> I claim that
> (a) _It is worth money_ means _Its value is measurable in money._
> (b) _It is worthy of money_  means _It is deserving of money._
> Both of the above statements are meaningful but the meanings are different. Do you agree?


 Alas no, I don't agree.  For me, (a) has nothing to do with it being measurable, it just means that it is worth paying money for, so that basically (a) and (b) mean the same.

I adopt this interpretation as the only one that comes to mind here, and it is an interpretation with which both WRD and M-W concur.
In WRD, meaning 1 of "worth" (adjective governing a noun with prepositional force) is given as "worthy of", with a good example _an idea worth some thought_.
M-W even goes the whole hog and defines "worth" (preposition) as: 3. "deserving of", with an example _such books are worth deliberate and thoughtful perusal_, among others.


> (c) _It is worth mention_ means_ Its value is measurable in mention._
> (d) _It is worthy of mention_ means _It is deserving of mention._
> This time, both statements have some kind of meaning.


 I presume you meant to write "Again" instead of "This time", since the latter appears to signal a contrast between the two pairs, which you don't seem to be making.


> (c) has the problem that 'mention' appears to be some kind of currency which can be used to pay for things.


 No.  By the same reasoning that "worth" means "deserving of" in (a), it does so also in (c).

(crossposted with SR and your reply to him)


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## Chasint

Edinburgher said:


> Alas no, I don't agree.  For me, (a) has nothing to do with it being measurable, it just means that it is worth paying money for, so that basically (a) and (b) mean the same.
> 
> I adopt this interpretation as the only one that comes to mind here, and it is an interpretation with which both WRD and M-W concur.
> In WRD, meaning 1 of "worth" (adjective governing a noun with prepositional force) is given as "worthy of", with a good example _an idea worth some thought_.
> M-W even goes the whole hog and defines "worth" (preposition) as: 3. "deserving of", with an example _such books are worth deliberate and thoughtful perusal_, among others.
> I presume you meant to write "Again" instead of "This time", since the latter appears to signal a contrast between the two pairs, which you don't seem to be making.
> No.  By the same reasoning that "worth" means "deserving of" in (a), it does so also in (c).
> 
> (crossposted with SR and your reply to him)


Yes. I conceded to SR that _It is worth money_ means _It is worth paying money for.*_ That is a much more accurate definition than mine.

I now happily concede the same thing to you. But, if I concede that, then surely you must concede in parallel that _It is worth mention_ means _It is worth paying mention for._

You cannot have it both ways. This is not a matter of dictionary definitions, it is a matter of being consistent.


______________________________________________________
* I didn't do so explicitly at the time. I just accepted the change. I have returned to that post and noted the fact.


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## Edinburgher

Biffo said:


> Yes. I conceded to SR that _It is worth money_ means _It is worth paying money for._ That is a better definition than mine.
> I now happily concede the same thing to you. But, if I concede that, then surely you must concede in parallel that _It is worth mention_ means _It is worth paying mention for._


 Absolutely not.


> You cannot have it both ways. This is not a matter of dictionary definitions, it is a matter of being consistent.


 I beg to differ; there is no question of "both ways" here, it is a matter of definitions and of applying those definitions consistently.

If you want to disagree with the dictionaries' observations that "worth" means "deserving of", then we are doomed.  Humour me and accept those definitions, at least for the sake of the argument, and then let's see what happens when we apply them consistently.

Then our starting position is that
_It is worth money_ means _it is deserving of money_,
and that
_It is worth mention_ means _it is deserving of mention_.

These are perfectly parallel and perfectly consistent so far.

Now, _it is deserving of money_ in turn means _it is worth paying money for_, but in that derived meaning, where does the newly added word _paying_ come from?  It comes from _money_, not from _worth_; indeed the word _worth_ was not even present in the intervening phrase _deserving of money_; we are merely re-introducing the word _worth_ in this derived phrase.  When something is deserving of money, then it is worth paying money for.

The equivalent derivation with _mention_ requires that a corresponding new word must also not come from (the absent) _worth_, but from _mention_.  We do not _pay mention for_, we _make mention of_.  Thus, when something is deserving of mention, then it is worth making mention of.


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## Chasint

I am happy (nay delirious) to abide by dictionary definitions as long as they are applied in a consistent way. 


Edinburgher said:


> A...Then our starting position is that
> _It is worth money_ means _it is deserving of money_,
> and that
> _It is worth mention_ means _it is deserving of mention_.
> 
> These are perfectly parallel and perfectly consistent so far.
> 
> Now, _it is deserving of money_ in turn means _it is worth paying money for_, but in that derived meaning, where does the newly added word _paying_ come from?  It comes from _money_, not from _worth_; indeed the word _worth_ was not even present in the intervening phrase _deserving of money_; we are merely re-introducing the word _worth_ in this derived phrase.  When something is deserving of money, then it is worth paying money for.
> 
> The equivalent derivation with _mention_ requires that a corresponding new word must also not come from (the absent) _worth_, but from _mention_.  We do not _pay mention for_, we _make mention of_.  Thus, when something is deserving of mention, then it is worth making mention of.


The problem is that I don't accept your starting position. In #48 you say "It is worth money" means "it is deserving of money." However in #46 you contradict yourself. You say "Alas no, I don't agree. For me, (a) ... just means that it is worth paying money for..."

Now, which is it? These two sentences mean two different things. I have already argued this point but I shall do so again.

_John is deserving of money_ means that John is a good guy who should receive money.
_John is worth paying money for_ has an entirely different meaning that I shall not go into.

You cannot equate these two sentences. That is precisely my point.  With the greatest of respect,  if your starting position is in error then the rest of your argument can be discounted without even being read.


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## e2efour

Readers of this thread may be interested in some raw data based on the AE and BE results from Google Books.
Whatever the merits of the phrases, the results at least show that _worth mention_ and _worth a mention_ are much less common.

Key:
<phrase> <number> <(percentage)>

British English
Worth mention 3,083 (4.43%) In the period 1970-2000: 401
Worth a mention 904 (1.29%) In the period 1970-2000: 699
Worth mentioning 50,782 (72%)	
Worthy of mention 14,775 (21.24%)

American English 
Worth mention 5,639 (3.27%)	In the period 1970-2000: 1,182
Worth a mention 904 (0.52%) In the period 1970-2000: 683
Worth mentioning	116,282 (67.58%)	
Worthy of mention 49,220 (28.60%)


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## Chasint

e2efour said:


> Readers of this thread may be interested in some raw data based on the AE and BE results from Google Books.
> ...


Whilst that is actually very interesting, I have to be fair and say that the numerical aspects, albeit in graphical form, were covered way back on page 1 starting with Andygc's post #7.
The argument has moved on to the following question: Are the comparatively few people who employ the term "worth mention" simply misguided? I say they are, some others disagree.


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## Edinburgher

Biffo said:


> I am happy (nay delirious) to abide by dictionary definitions as long as they are applied in a consistent way.
> 
> The problem is that I don't accept your starting position. In #48 you say "It is worth money" means "it is deserving of money." However in #46 you contradict yourself. You say "Alas no, I don't agree. For me, (a) ... just means that it is worth paying money for..."
> 
> Now, which is it? These two sentences mean two different things. I have already argued this point but I shall do so again.


 It is both.  There is no contradiction.  If A means B, and B means C, then A means C.  Replace "means" with "can mean" if that helps.  I don't intend "means" to represent a two-way identity here, so it is not necessarily commutative, but it certainly is transitive.
Now plug in A="worth money", B="deserving of money", C="worth paying money for", and then "A means B" represents what I said in #48, and "A means C" represents what I said in #46.
"A means C" is a consequence of "A means B" and "B means C" both being true.  We just need to make sure they are both true. 


> _John is deserving of money_ means that John is a good guy who should receive money.
> _John is worth paying money for_ has an entirely different meaning that I shall not go into.
> 
> You cannot equate these two sentences. That is precisely my argument.


 Agreed. The trouble is that John is not an "it", but a person, and is therefore an unsuitable vehicle for reasoning about the case "*it* is worth/deserving ...".  It is perhaps not helpful to adhere doggedly to some strict interpretation of "deserving"; one of the other, looser, definitions of "worth" may well make the A-means-B-means-C chain work in a way more acceptable to you.

Even if the analogy between mention and money proves too tenuous to satisfy (you), that analogy is no longer necessary to settle the question central to the thread, namely whether your (c) and (d) from #43 (i.e. "worth mention" and "worthy of mention") can have the same meaning; the dictionaries already confirm that they can.

Recall that the original question (#1) concerned the validity of _It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer. _Here, "it" is just an anticipatory placeholder for the fact stated in the that-clause, just as it is in the OP's alternative sentence _It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer.
_Essentially version 1 is saying "this fact is worth mention", and that is a perfectly good (even if neither a popular nor the best) way of saying
"this fact is worth a mention",
 "this fact is worthy of mention",
 "this fact is worth mentioning",
"this fact deserves mention",
"this fact deserves a mention",
 "this fact deserves mentioning", and
 "this fact is deserving of mention".
  They all mean the roughly same thing.


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## Chasint

Dictionary definitions
If I go to my dictionary I can prove that "light" is an adjective meaning "full of light". You can go to the same dictionary and prove that "light" is an adjective meaning "not heavy". Trading definitions gets us nowhere: We must always agree which definition we are discussing at any given moment. Both meanings can be discussed but we can't jump from one to the other in the middle of an important argument.


Associativity and commutativity
Here is where your logic is flawed. B and C (your definitions) are constants. A is a variable.  Sometimes A means B and sometimes it means C. In fact B and C can be contradictory so long as they apply at different times. Associativity and commutativity do not apply for variables.


Equivalence
I simply don’t and cannot accept that, "it is deserving of money" means precisely the same as, “it is worth paying money for.” Forget about John and his problems, let’s look at inanimate objects or even abstract nouns. Can you provide an actual subject (other than a pronoun or placeholder) for the following sentences?
“____ is deserving of money.”
“____ is worth paying money for.”
Is the subject the same in both cases? Do both sentences make sense? Most importantly do they have precisely the same meaning?


Analogy
Far from finding the analogy between money and mention tenuous, I find it extremely useful. The fact that I can prove a difference between “worth money” and “worthy of money” strengthens my argument that “worth mention” is different from “worthy of mention”.


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## Andygc

This argument has two faces:

1. Descriptive grammar. I have no problem with a phrase that has been used quite widely: that is, over a long period of time and by many well-educated writers. In post #23 Biffo asked 





> The crucial question for me is: How do you parse the sentence "It is worth mention"?


I answered in post #31 - a noun phrase used adjectivally. In post #33 Biffo wrote 





> Andygc's argument assumes part of the very thing that it is attempting to prove, namely that "worth mention" is correct.


That is, of course, a distorted view of reality. I was not attempting to prove anything, but was merely doing what Biffo asked - parsing the sentence.

2. Prescriptive grammar. Biffo has argued that the phrase is a mistake and is aesthetically displeasing. He has argued irrelevantly (rabbits) and, helped by others, wandered off down irrelevant sideways (eg, "money" and "worthy of"). However, the basis, or starting point, of his objection was no more than an observation about frequency of use ("scrapes along the bottom" post #18). Post #32 is a clear statement of the approach taken by Biffo 





> I'm being prescriptive but occasionally a prescriptive approach to grammar is important (my opinion).


It seems to me that this is a case where Biffo is being prescriptive with no justification other than his opinion. That is, of course, the essence of prescriptive grammar. It is based wholly on opinion, and can never have proof. Thus, Biffo's argument and objections to a descriptive approach can never be more than a hunt for a mare's nest.

There is, however, some light at the end of this tunnel with this statement in post #49





> I am happy (nay delirious) to abide by dictionary definitions as long as they are applied in a consistent way.



Part of the OED entry for worth reads





> With nouns having the force of vbl. ns.
> 1877   T. H. Huxley Physiogr. 76   The rusting of this particular metal is worth closer study.


A couple of definitions, also from the OED





> study - The action of studying





> mention - the action or an act of referring to, remarking upon, or introducing the name of a person or thing in spoken or written discourse


The quotation is an exact parallel of using "mention". That is, "study" can be used as a verb or as a noun, and is used in this sentence as a noun without an article. It would be equally valid without the adjective - "... is worth study". Both nouns have meanings linked directly to the action of the verbs.  Both have "the force of verbal nouns". I have no doubt that "this is worth study" and "this is worth mention" are both grammatical. I describe "rabbit" and "money" as irrelevant in this context since neither has the force of a verbal noun. 

I hasten to add that I do not put this forward as a proof, there can be none, but merely as a note that the OED's approach to this use of "worth" is the same as mine:  that of a descriptive approach to grammar. I leave it to others to decide if my original statement in this thread was valid 





Andygc said:


> "It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer." is a correct but somewhat outdated way of saying this.
> 
> "It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer." is the much more common form of this sentence.


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## Edinburgher

Biffo said:


> Associativity and commutativity
> Here is where your logic is flawed. B and C (your definitions) are constants. A is a variable.  Sometimes A means B and sometimes it means C. In fact B and C can be contradictory so long as they apply at different times. Associativity and commutativity do not apply for variables.


 I hesitate to get bogged down in ultimately unnecessary detail, and I hope you're not deliberately trying to twist my words.  I did not mention, nor mean, associativity, but said and meant transitivity. This applies to relations, not to terms like constants or variables.  The distinction between constants and variables is  a red herring here. A, B, and C are all simply terms (words or phrases).  "A means B" is a definition in which two terms A and B are joined by the relation "means" to tell us that B is a possible meaning of A (to say that B is a definition of A, as you've done, employs a slightly different meaning of the word "definition").  If C is also a possible meaning of B, it follows that C is a possible meaning of A. This is what I meant by "means" being transitive. 


> Equivalence
> I simply don’t and cannot accept that, "it is deserving of money" means precisely the same as, “it is worth paying money for.”


 But that's not what I'm claiming.  Language is not as cut-and-dried as mathematics, and in general no two terms always have precisely the same meaning.  We need to adopt a more tolerant approach to how we relate meanings.  Of course "deserving of money" and "worth paying money for" won't always be equivalent, and that is why I mentioned commutativity: the idea was that the relation "means" is not in general commutative (that is to say reversible) and therefore does not represent equivalence.  An equivalence would obtain if "A means B" and "B means A".


> Forget about John and his problems, let’s look at inanimate objects or even abstract nouns. Can you provide an actual subject (other than a pronoun or placeholder) for the following sentences?
> “____ is deserving of money.”
> “____ is worth paying money for.”
> Is the subject the same in both cases? Do both sentences make sense? Most importantly do they have precisely the same meaning?


 Yes, I think I can, but no doubt not to your entire satisfaction.  What I first had in mind was a car, but it might also work with (say) an amateur theatre project (though for this example the collocation "paying for" is not particularly comfortable, almost as bad as with poor old John).  I don't, however, think that having "precisely the same meaning" is really a necessary condition here because we're not talking about unique meanings, but about palettes of possible meanings.
  The question is: Can "This car is worth money" possibly mean "This car is worth paying money for"?  And I would say the answer is yes it can, and it would/could mean "This car is worth buying, provided the price is right".  It could also mean "This car is worth spending money on", which has a rather different meaning (it's not ready for the scrap heap yet, and it would be worth treating it to the new exhaust it needs).  Whether either of these meanings chime with the car being "deserving of money" would probably depend on how much latitude you allow in how you define "deserving".


> Analogy
> Far from finding the analogy between money and mention tenuous, I find it extremely useful. The fact that I can prove a difference between “worth money” and “worthy of money”


 There are, I concede, ways in which those two terms differ.  That does not mean there is no way in which they could possibly ever mean the same.  In general, "worthy" is very close to "deserving", in that the person, thing, or cause in question is credited with an element of earned merit.  That is easy for us to accept in respect of poor old John, or of a theatre project, but more difficult for a mere car (Can we say that Basil Fawlty's car deserved (or was deserving of) a "damn good thrashing" when it wouldn't start?).  I see something "being worth money" as indicating that in some sense investing money in it would be a good move in as wide a sense as the context may require.


> strengthens my argument that “worth mention” is different from “worthy of mention”.


 The original concern was whether "worth mention" does or can mean the same as "worth mentioning", and I suspect that going via "worthy of mention" and "deserving of mention" was an unhelpful diversion. The parallel, if any, I would draw between "worth money" and "worth mention" is that something "being worth mention" indicates that, similarly to what I wrote above about money, it would be a good move to _invest mention_ in it.  Of course  we don't think of mention as being a resource that we "invest" like money, but we can find a near-enough equivalent: "give mention to" or "make mention of".  Ultimately there is nothing but personal preference to choose between the noun "mention" and the gerund "mentioning".  They are not identical, but are close enough (to wit: mention is the act of mentioning), and if you stick "it is worth" in front of them, then although their structures are somewhat different, their meanings can clearly be the same.

And here's the thing.  If they can be, then to whoever wants them to be, they are.  To whoever doesn't, they aren't, but that doesn't mean they can't be.


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## Chasint

I would like to express my appreciation for the detailed posts of Andygc and Edinburgher. I intend to go through each in detail, (a) to see if I am persuaded to change my mind and (b) to counter their arguments if I am not so persuaded. I'm not sure when I shall have time to do all this but I intend to do it within a reasonable time-frame. If nothing else it will clarify my own thinking on the topic.

In the meantime I apologise for my silly mistake in typing associativity instead of transitivity - it was careless of me.


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## Thomas1

Andygc said:


> It is the book that is barely readable, not an individual sentence. It  has major errors of syntax and grammar (and the content is pretty dire,  too).


I did notice them too in your quote. They don't mean, however, that there aren't correct parts in the text.

Having said that...


dreamlike said:


> Hello Thomas.
> 
> I think part of the issue might be the fact that "It's worth mentioning" has become some entrenched in some speakers' minds that any other way of saying it will be frowned upon by them. I'm struggling to understand what's wrong with "it's worth it to mention" in terms of grammar, probably it's grammaticaly fine, but it does sound off even to my non-native ears. And it's certainly not frequent.





Andygc said:


> [...]
> PS dreamlike has a point. Things may be grammatical, but abnormal usage. That is what lay behind the disagreement in this thread: The flight’s delay was notified [notify in passive]



This seems to solve this question. Thank you both for your helpful contributions.


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## ol.bond

Hi there, 

Returning back to this thread, I have been working on a journal article and used "It is worth mentioning here..." in the text. One of the reviewers pointed out that this is a spoken language. So the question is: what is an appropriate substitute?


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## Andygc

Clearly it is written, not spoken, text as you have apparently only presented it as a quotation to ask your question. There is nothing whatsoever wrong with using it in a journal article.

When I was a reviewer for a scientific journal I reviewed papers for their content - method, presentation of results, analysis, etc. I left language and style to the relevant experts - the editors.


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## kalamazoo

"It is worth mentioning here" is to my mind perfectly acceptable written English.  It's not colloquial and you can 'mention' things in writing as well as in speech.  (Perhaps the reviewer was not a native English speaker.  I wrote in an article once that something had been discussed 'above', which is fine in English, but the German journal changed it.  I think because they didn't realize this was acceptable in English.)


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## SevenDays

marsbeing said:


> Hello folks,
> 
> Of the two sentences below, which one is correct?
> 
> It is worth mention that he is also a very experienced writer.
> 
> It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer.



This is a long thread, and this may have been already mentioned, but since there is _extraposition_ involved (that's how dummy "it" shows up), let's remove extraposition and turn the sentence around, putting the that-clause first:

with extraposition,
_It is worth mentioning that he is also a very experienced writer _

without extraposition,
_That he is also a very experienced writer is worth mentioning _
_That he is also a very experienced writer is worth mention _

Extraposition takes a heavy element (such as a that-clause in subject position) and moves it to the back of the sentence, where it is easier to process. The status of "worth" may be a topic of discussion, but if it's considered an "adjective," then what follows needs to be a noun, and syntax has an easier time considering "mentioning" a noun rather than "mention" (or so it seems to me).


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## ol.bond

Thank you all for clarifying the question. 

Perhaps, the full sentence was vague to the reviewer: "It is worth mentioning here another significant difference between the classical and proposed modelling approaches, related to the power calculation."

But, I don't think I should debate with the reviewer, and some modification has to be made anywhere. 

Is it appropriate to rewrite it as: "It is worth noting here ..."?


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## Andygc

You could make that change; it does not change the meaning in any significant way. 

I'm puzzled by the role of your reviewer, but my puzzlement is outside the scope of this thread.


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## ol.bond

Andygc said:


> You could make that change; it does not change the meaning in any significant way.
> 
> I'm puzzled by the role of your reviewer, but my puzzlement is outside the scope of this thread.



Thank you.


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## ol.bond

By the way, may anyone suggest a resource/reference where the usage of words or phrases can be checked?


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