Shopping and money in Portuguese

Near the end of the list stands vale a pena, and the sentence beside it, Vale a pena esperar pelos saldos, hides a small difference in bookkeeping. Both languages decide whether a thing is worth doing by weighing it against something, and the two do not put the same goods on the scale. Portuguese puts a pena there — the trouble, the penalty, what the thing will cost in vexation. English puts a stretch of time there instead: « worth your while », « worth the wait ». That « while » is a noun, and this is one of the last corners of everyday English where it still is one, alongside « a good while ago » and « to while away an afternoon ». Two things follow for a reader. The renderings that keep the Portuguese image are « worth the trouble » and « worth the bother », not the bare « worth it », which names no cost. And the negative is the form heard most often: não vale a pena usually says there is no point in trying, which is flatter and more final than « it is not worth it ».