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The European commissioner for competition, Margrethe Vestager, said this morning that the EU is willing to investigate the settlement, telling BBC Radio 4 that these sorts of "sweetheart deals" can amount to "illegal state aid," and that they benefit established companies at the expensive of newer businesses. theverge.com

I came across the expression "at the expensive of" while reading an English newspaper today and am having a hard time understanding its grammar since "expensive" is an adjective. I googled that expression and even Google says "Did you mean: at the expense of." It's surprising still there are more than 50,000 results with the expression "at the expensive of."

So, my question is,

  1. Is "at the expensive of" a correct expression?
  2. If it is, how can it be grammatically explained?
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    "at the expense of" is a commonly used idiom. I've not come across "at the expensive of".
    – Varun Nair
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 11:19
  • It doesn't look correct. This might have been an editing mistake by theverge. If someone absent-mindedly writes "expensive" when they meant "expense", a spell-checker won't catch it. Alternately, the writer might have made a typo, and a spell-checker suggested "expensive" as the best fix, and the editor accepted it without seeing if it was really correct.
    – stangdon
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 12:43
  • Those are very valid assumption @stangdon, your deductive skills are quite commendable.
    – Varun Nair
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 13:15
  • I had to read the sentence three times before I realized it said "expensive" and not "expense"! Sometimes your mind sees what it wants. Pretty sure this is a typo, possibly caused by an auto-spell check.
    – Ron Jensen
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 14:17
  • Somebody has transcribed the passage incorrectly, if you look at the original it's: "they benefit established companies at the expense of newer businesses". Good to know not everyone just cuts and pastes...
    – Peter
    Commented Jan 28, 2016 at 16:14

1 Answer 1

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This might be a small mistake on the side of Verge. A very commonly used idiom is:

at the expense of (someone or something)

Which means :

  1. in a way that harms (something or someone).
  2. paid by someone else (in terms of cash).
  3. with the loss of something.
  • The hotel flourished at the expense of small eateries beside it.
  • She acquired the land at the expense of her good name in the society.
  • He thinks that the the new tax laws will benefit the rich at the expense of the poor.
  • He booked the air tickets at the expense of the company.
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