Is it pour over or pore over?

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The first noticeable confusion that exists between the verbs “pore” and “pour” is in the realm of sound. A lot of people carry this phonological confusion over to writing as well. When two or more words which are different in spelling and meaning are pronounced the same way, we call them homophones. We have a lot of them in English: flour – flower, mail – male, jeans – genes, their – there, hear – here, dye – die, write – right.

From the above examples, it is clear that homophones are troublesome words that twist our meanings and mar our writings. You may get away with inserting a word in a wrong co-text in speech but you won’t escape raising eyebrows of percipient readers in writing. The moment you write, “Their is a woman standing hear,” you have lost your careful reading audience but your listening audience won’t find out how wrong you are because sound has come to your rescue.

The basic orthographical difference between “Pore” and “pour” is the absence of “u” and the presence of “e” in “pore.” That makes it pretty easy to abuse the words in wrong co-texts. Where orality is concerned, it is even easier to employ “pour” in place of “pore” because both verbs share the same sound /p??(r)/.

Knowing the meanings of these verbs will help us solve the problem as It’d help us avoid using them in wrong co-texts and context.?“Pour” is, according to AOLD “to make a liquid or other substance flow from a container in a continuous stream, especially by holding the container at an angle.” You can therefore pour some water into a kettle. Pour also means “to flow out in great quantities or with force” (Merriam webster online dictionary). The sense in which “pour” is used makes it all about the flow of liquid. “Pore,” on the other hand?is “one of the very small holes in your skin that sweat can pass through; one of the similar small holes in the surface of a plant or a rock,” AOLD.?

It is however understood that the verb form of the word “pore” means “ to gaze intently,” Merriam Webster Dictionary. This undoubtedly rubs it off “over” when it is placed alongside “pore.”?

Having understood the two verbs in isolation, it is important we consider their use in association with the preposition “over.” If you pour some water over the leaf of a book, the meaning is not far-fetched. It is just as it reads. This is why it cannot be regarded as a phrasal verb. But if you pore over a book, it holds a special meaning beyond the meanings of “pore” and “over” when considered as separate English words. If you pore over a book, you are reading the book with such a rapt attention.?You are going “deeply, seriously, carefully” into the book. You are probably studying for exams or… there are many things that could make you pore over a book.

It is now clear that it is wrong to “pour over a book” because “pour” and “over” can never combine to make a phrasal verb that will give us a special meaning.