Money's-worth

Following on from what Elspeth said about my line, 'I got some more of my moneys worth of the carpet…' I contacted linguist David Crystal, OBE (author of The English Language and many more) about which usage would be appropriate. This issue was raised as I asked a few writing friends what they thought about the sentence.

Johnathan Norton responded with;

'Isn't "moneysworth" a single expression? Akin to "jobsworth"?

I understand the whole statement to mean "I got more value for money on the carpet transaction".'

So he understood the sentence, which was a relief. The idea of moneysworth being a single expression was the subject I raised with David Crystal. He said the following;

'The only usage recognized in the OED is money's-worth from an earlier money-worth. But as there's no possible ambiguity, I'd expect to see moneysworth increase in frequency - and it's often used these days. As money is usually uncountable, I wouldn't expect to see monies'-worth.'

So that clarifies the wording of money's-worth somewhat, and will be the version I continue to use, if the remaining people I contacted find the sentence understandable.