A letter comes to hand from John Brock of Georgetown, S.C. He inquires, “How do you know when to use though’ and when to use although’?”

This is a toughy. Reader Brock offers an invented example: “Although (though) one might surmise that she is a trollop, she is really a fine young lady.”

Let me offer some exhibits from the real world. On March 26, The New York Times carried two editorials, one of them directly above the other. In an editorial on Social Security, the Times said: “Although the challenges facing Social Security are routinely described as a crisis, that characterization seems overblown.”

The next editorial had to do with efforts by the Bush administration to rebut the flak coming its way from Richard Clarke, the anti-terrorism czar. Said the Times, “Though this is not a terribly productive strategy, it is perfectly OK for the White House to keep an instant response team at the ready.”

There is not a dime’s worth of semantic difference between “though” and “although.” The two conjunctions convey the identical meaning of “in spite of the fact that” or simply, “while.” The sole difference is that “though” has one syllable and “although” has two. This is important to writers who have a special concern for cadence, but it is immaterial to readers who are trying to make out the sense of a sentence.

Let me chew on this bone a while longer. In The Economist of March 20, we find on Page 12: “Although Spain’s high voting turnout … can be taken …” On Page 25 we find, “Though an awful lot has gone wrong in Iraq …” On Page 41, in a report from Seoul, “Although presidents are barred from campaigning in legislative elections …”

Shakespeare could play it both ways. Indeed, he could play it both ways in the same poem. In “As You Like It,” one of the attendant lords sings, “Blow, blow, thou winter wind,” we find, “Although thy breath be rude …” Eight lines later, “Though thou the waters warp, thy sting is not so sharp …” Ben Jonson had a thought for his lady, “Though beauty be the mark of praise, yet tis your virtue now I raise.” Tennyson inclined toward “tho,” as in “tho’ from out our bourne of time and place.”

The translators who put together the King James Bible used the conjunctions fungibly. In a familiar passage from 1 Corinthians, you will find a string of “thoughs”: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels … and though I have the gift of prophecy … and though I have all faith …”

There are plenty of “althoughs” also: In Habakkuk 3:19, “Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be on the vine.” In Jeremiah 31:32, “although I was a husband unto them …”

Very well, let it go. I have shot a whole morning searching Bartlett’s Quotations and three anthologies for examples of “though” and “although.” An hour after I file this copy, a dozen better examples will spring to mind. This is the point that bears repetition: We read not only with our eyes, but also with our inner ears. I’m not equipped to lecture on trochees and iambs, but I can urge fellow writers constantly to think about the subtle rhythms of English speech.

It is astonishing how much can be done with a syllable here and a syllable there, without sacrificing an iota of meaning. I have used this example before, and will trot it out again, of the New England editor who covered a close vote at a township meeting. He first wrote, “The mayor cast the only dissenting vote.” Then he had a second thought: “The mayor cast the lone dissenting vote.”

You get the point.
James Kilpatrick is a syndicated columnist.