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Most people today has nearly an empty "glass" of unique life experiences when they die. Ludo's glass was already pouring over of experiences that millions dream about achieving only once.

The full text is from here.The two sentences do not make sense to me. In the first sentence, he said that most people's glasses are empty. So to contrast with Ludo's, the 2nd should be understood as saying : Ludo's "glass" is filled with experiences. Why does he say "the glass was pouring over of experiences ". How can a glass pour itself ? A cup/glass can only be poured by people. And I don't believe this is similar to this

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  • You're more likely in general to see "pour over" used when the correct wording is "pore over," but that's a separate problem of misusage.
    – Carl Witthoft
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 15:10
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    There is an unrelated error in the first sentence: it should be "Most people today have".
    – Nate Eldredge
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 15:38
  • @NateEldredge Even replacing 'has' with 'have' doesn't fix it. "Most people today have nearly an empty 'glass'..." should be "Most people today have a nearly empty 'glass'..."
    – DCShannon
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 23:34
  • Both sentences look rather like they've been generated by Google Translate... I think it would sound more fluent to say, "Most people today have an almost empty glass of unique life experiences when they die. Ludo's glass was already running over with experiences that millions dream of achieving once..." Actually, even that sounds awful!
    – i alarmed alien
    Commented Sep 11, 2014 at 3:29

2 Answers 2

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Pouring over of is a mistake made by a non-native English speaker. You won't find that expression in common usage.

Normal, correct ways to express what I believe he is trying to say would be

Ludo's glass was already overflowing with experiences that millions dream about achieving only once.

or

Ludo's glass was already spilling over with experiences that millions dream about achieving only once.

The glass is, of course, metaphorical.

By the way, there is an unrelated expression that sounds the same. To pore over something means to inspect or read something carefully.

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    Another valid variant is "running over" (or "runneth over" if you want to sound archaic or ironic). The popularity of the metaphor presumably can be tracked back to Psalm 23 ("The Lord Is My Shepherd"). The translation is "my cup overflows" in the NIV, but "my cup runneth over" in the KJV. I think it's a safe understatement to say that the KJV was quite influential on English idiom :-)
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 10:24
  • Oh, and "to paw through" something is similar to "to pore over", but with direct contact!
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 10:29
  • "Brimming over" is what I'd've said.
    – starsplusplus
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 11:01
  • You could have a pudding with a sauce to pour over it, though.
    – i alarmed alien
    Commented Sep 11, 2014 at 3:34
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Consider this: when you pour something into a glass it's not only the action of water entering the glass but also water leaving the original container. So in this instance, it's saying that the glass is so full that experiences are pouring out.

The excerpt was taken from a facebook page so it is not perfect English as it was more casually written.

I'd rewrite it as thus:

Most people die with a near "empty" glass of life experiences; Ludo's glass was already overpouring with experiences that millions of people dream of experiencing just once.

I agree the word of is awkward in the original excerpt and with is more appropriate.

RIP Base-jumper Ludo

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  • So you mean that the glass is so full and it overflows ?
    – quintana43
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 5:42
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    @quintana43 Yes, that is exactly what pouring over means in this instance.
    – deadghost
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 5:48
  • Can I leave out "of" ?.It sounds strange to me. And since you're a native speaker, is there a better way to say this ?
    – quintana43
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 5:52
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    @quintana43 As deadghost says, it's not written in good English. When I read the original sentence I understood what it meant but this use of "pouring over" is almost unheard of. Most people would say "overflowing".
    – Bob Tway
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 8:07
  • @quintana: yes. If you were going to say "pouring over" (rather than the more familiar variants that 200_success gives), then you should certainly say "pouring over with experiences", not "pouring over of experiences".
    – Steve Jessop
    Commented Sep 10, 2014 at 10:28

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