Talk:through

American English usage?

As a Brit, I occasionally notice an apparently US-specific usage of through, in sentences such as this:

"Some editions were available to volume license customers, MSDN and TechNet subscribers through November 2006." ([1])

I've never been absolutely sure what this means. Does it mean throughout November 2006? -- 80.47.94.197 18:57, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

As an American, I interpret that sentence as meaning that advance copies were available before November 2006, but were cut off (perhaps in stages) sometime in November 2006. To change it to "throughout" would be incorrect, as that would imply all of November, drastically changing the meaning. --Connel MacKenzie 20:51, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

I understand to mean "from now till the end of November". —Stephen 14:25, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

It is indeed a US-specific usage (actually it's probably North American, but at any rate non-British). 22:11, 18 September 2007 (UTC)86.137.136.182

Definitely a US usage. They also use e.g. "Monday through Friday" when other English speakers would say "Monday to Friday". --Buvelot 00:44, 14 August 2008 (UTC)

The Oxford English Dictionary marks this meaning of "through" as US English. For people in the UK who find this usage incomprehensible and strange; just replace "through" with "to" or "until". I personally think this meaning of the word is illogical and doesn't make sense. The example of "Monday through Friday" seems to mean one particular day of the week is going through another day of the week. 92.21.44.209 16:51, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

The logic is that Americans understand the "to" in "Monday to Friday" as meaning "up to the point where Friday begins", so it includes all of Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, but stops once Friday is reached, and therefore Friday is excluded (because Friday was reached at 12:00 midnight, and the following 24 hours of Friday were out of range). The word "through" means that it includes all the way up to the start of Friday, and then proceeds through Friday until the end of Friday, and therefore all of Friday is included as well. It is the same as saying, "walk from here to that house" (once you reach the house, you stop and do not enter it); or, "walk from here through that house" (when you reach the house, you enter and continue through it to the other side). —Stephen ^(Talk) 17:49, 17 August 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me this definition can be equivalent to to ("1 through 9" = "[from] 1 to 9 [inclusive]") or up to ("through 31st December" = "[from now] up to [and including] 31st December"). Should this be two separate definitions? Interplanet Janet (talk) 10:45, 8 August 2012 (UTC)

Wiktionary:Requests for verification - kept

Kept. See archived discussion of June 2008. 00:03, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

Temporal meaning missing

A temporal meaning is missing, as in "all through the night". —Aɴɢʀ (talk) 15:29, 21 September 2013 (UTC)

I’ve added a new adverbial sense (sense 3) as it it is subtlety different to sense 2. (You can replace ‘He worked through the night’ with ‘He worked throughout the night’ but you can’t replace ‘He worked straight through’ with ‘He worked straight throughout’) Overlordnat1 (talk) 18:09, 4 August 2021 (UTC)

Past

If I say "I drove through it." Or "I drove past it". What is it that makes "through" a preposition but "past" an adverb. I'm so confused.Jonteemil (talk) 12:26, 19 October 2016 (UTC)

Nouns

Just checking, is the division of nouns under etymology 1 and etymology 2 correct here? Should both noun definitions be listed under etymology 2? They seem to be related, I tried to check on the OED but I'm still a bit confused. 2WR1 (talk) 21:27, 9 January 2019 (UTC)

Symbols

Page 1572 of the Cambridge Grammar of the English Language reads:

Through contains three symbols: composite th + simple r + composite ough ( /θ/, /r/, and /u/ respectively).

--Backinstadiums (talk) 10:23, 26 September 2020 (UTC)

from one to the other of

Monkeys swinging through the trees --Backinstadiums (talk) 16:22, 30 March 2021 (UTC)