[General] Can we say the price is expensive?

[jiamajia]

Chinese English teachers told us to use high price rather than expensive price. But I have heard people say both low and cheap prices and I wonder the notion that expensive price is not correct English has its merits. Thank you.

 

[Barb_D]

I tend to agree.

How does it cost?
It's expensive.
Yeah, but what does it cost?
The price is high - $2500.
Yeah, that's a high price.


You may indeed hear "an expensive price" but I wouldn't recommend it.

 

[jiamajia]

I tend to agree.

How does it cost?
It's expensive.
Yeah, but what does it cost?
The price is high - $2500.
Yeah, that's a high price.


You may indeed hear "an expensive price" but I wouldn't recommend it.

Would you accept the term 'cheap price' ?

 

[stanislaw.masny]

Chinese English teachers told us to use high price rather than expensive price. But I have heard people say both low and cheap prices and I wonder the notion that expensive price is not correct English has its merits. Thank you.

I think that price may be low, high. good, right, attractive... but commodity
may be expensive or cheap. What is it in your native language?
S.M.

 

[jiamajia]

I think that price may be low, high. good, right, attractive... but commodity
may be expensive or cheap. What is it in your native language?
S.M.

In China, people happen to use the Chinese equivalent of 'expensive price' much more often than that of 'high price' and that is why the teachers warn students not to simply think the same way in English.

 

[stanislaw.masny]

In China, people happen to use the Chinese equivalent of 'expensive price' much more often than that of 'high price' and that is why the teachers warn students not to simply think the same way in English.

It is as I supposed. The teachers are right. （我完全同意你的卡反?)

 

[emsr2d2]

I wouldn't use "price" with either "cheap" or "expensive".

It's on sale at a high price = It's expensive.
It's on sale at a low price = It's cheap.

 

[Raymott]

This has been discussed before, and I think it was the general consensus that "expensive price" was no better than:
"His height is tall", "His weight is quite obese," etc.

 

[konungursvia]

Agreed. But I think all these are bad style and poor rhetoric, but acceptable grammatically and logically. Once, a Teaching Assistant in my Undergrad years called my prose "functional yet aesthetic." I thought that was a similarly awkward bit of writing.