Proofread Bot
المدونة / Though, Through, or Thought? 10 Real Mistakes and How to Fix Them
Though, Through, or Thought? 10 Real Mistakes and How to Fix Them
These three words differ by only one or two letters, so a slip of the finger turns one into another, and a spell checker will accept all of them. The examples below are real sentences that people sent to Proofread Bot.
The corrections are written in formal, academic English, so contractions are spelled out in full. Where a contracted or colloquial form is common in everyday writing, it is shown underneath as the informal version.
The short version
- Though means "although" or "however": "He came, though he was tired."
- Through means "into one side and out of the other," or "by means of": "We drove through the tunnel."
- Thought is the past tense of think, or a noun meaning "an idea."
1. "Through" where "though" is meant
✓ We walked even though it rained.
✓ He might recover, though the doctors cannot say for certain.
✓ I play the piano tolerably well, though I have no particular talent for it.
✓ You look as though you have been running a marathon!
✓ They are coming next week, though I have forgotten which day.
Test: replace the word with "although." "He might recover, although the doctors cannot say for certain" makes sense, so the correct word is though. In formal writing, "although" is often the better choice at the start of a clause anyway.
2. "Though" where "through" is meant
✓ We drove through the tunnel.
✓ I saw him drive through a red light.
✓ They walked slowly through the woods.
✓ We are able to scale our investments through dedicated co-investment vehicles.
If the word describes movement from one side to the other, or the means by which something is done, it is through.
3. "Though" where "thought" is meant
✓ They cannot check for things that a developer has not thought of.
Informal: …things that a developer hasn't thought of.
After has, have, or had, the verb needs its past participle, and the past participle of think is thought.
Other sound-alikes worth checking
The same kind of slip produces many other real-word errors. See our collections of commonly confused words, then vs. than, and to, too, and two. Proofread Bot checks the meaning of each sentence, not just the spelling of each word, so it catches all of these.