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up vote 5 down vote favorite

As in, I spent all night poring over those legal documents.

Or, do you use pore through?

Not to be confused with pour (some sugar).

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2 Answers

up vote 11 down vote accepted

This Google Ngram shows that poring through is highly uncommon, whilst poring over is common. I have never heard poring through before, only poring over. Technically, both are correct, but poring over is more common.

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Wow, what a great resource. – B Seven Oct 28 '11 at 22:46
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Ngram? I recently discovered it via this site, haha. Useful indeed. – Mahnax Oct 29 '11 at 4:47
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It needs to be used with caution. It is based only on printed books. As David Crystal writes here <david-crystal.blogspot.com/2010/12/on-culturomics.html>;, 'We mustn't exaggerate the significance of this project. It is no more than a collection of scanned books - an impressive collection, unprecedented in its size, and capable of displaying innumerable interesting trends, but far away from entire cultural reality.' – Barrie England Oct 29 '11 at 6:04
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@BarrieEngland This is true. Still useful though. – Mahnax Oct 29 '11 at 6:38
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@B Seven: N Gram – FumbleFingers Oct 29 '11 at 13:23
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up vote 0 down vote

Never. Though I heard a colleague last week say, "I'll pore over those documents tonight." I'm fairly confident he meant snore in place of pore though.

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