I've been struck recently by how often I see the word "worth" used in a context where I would say "value". An example - "the worth of the stock market dropped precipitously today." I would say/write "value", and when I hear or read "worth" it grates on my nerves. Anyone else noticing this evolution of usage?
What distinction do you make between worth and value? To me they are synonyms.
To me, in most contexts they would be synonyms.
If I were to make a distinction, I would say that worth is the more concrete, more monetized word, whereas value can be more abstract, as in the phrase sentimental value. For example, "Many things of little worth are of great value: smiles, birdsong, dewdrops, breezes." To me, reversing the words in the example sentence sounds tinny.
Such word pairs, one more concrete, one more abstract, are common in English. Typically the one of Germanic extraction has a nuance of the mundane, visceral, and concrete; the one of Romance extraction, usually via Old French, has a nuance of the lofty, philosophical, and abstract.
In programming, there are a number of ways of passing parameters to a subroutine: call-by-value, call-by-reference, etc. That bit of explanation out of the way: computer science pioneer Niklaus Wirth, creator of the programming language Pascal, was once asked for the proper pronunciation of his name. He's said to have responded "if you call me by name, it's Veert; if you call me by value, it's Worth".