It’s Poring, not Pouring.
Have you seen this?
Here and there, in the newspapers, advertisements, books, yes–in student papers–but even in publications from those folk who should know better, I find the expression, “As I was pouring over this idea,” or “I poured over his book,” or some whatnot . . . .
World, let’s not let the vulgar tongue take us down that trail! One “pores” over something of interest such as a book; one does not “pour.” The infinitives are, respectively, “to pore” as opposed to “to pour.”
There! Now wasn’t that snippy of me? Now, the interesting and instructive thing about these forms is that they both appear to come from the same Middle English “pouren,’ but somehow their spelling reflects a history of either transitive or intransitive usage. Or they may be considered to have nothing to do with one another. There is at least one instance of “pore” being used for “pour” in Chaucer.