LANGUAGE CORNER
Farther/Further
Farther? Further? Fussy?
For some generations now (but not a great many), we’ve been told to use “farther” as an adjective or adverb when distance, literal or figurative, is involved, and “further” for the sense of “additional.” (Out of gas, the car could go no farther; she made a further observation.) With all the things writers and editors need to remember, that ought to be a distinction not worth bothering about.
The words emerged in Old English as comparatives not for “far” but for “fore” or “forth,” depending on which reference one consults. The experts seem to agree that “further” came first, with “farther” born as both words mutated, in Middle English, into comparatives for “far.”
The two forms were used for centuries for both distance and “additional” applications; Shakespeare used both, both ways, with no recorded loss of sleep, and fine writers to this day have done the same. But great (and much-needed) codifying of the hodgepodge of English started in the eighteenth century, and by the end of the nineteenth the dictum about “farther” for one thing and “further” for another had taken hold.
The rule seems a distinction without a difference — a rule for a rule’s sake, regardless of the longer history and regardless of logic — and as such an unnecessary burden. These ears find “further” more adaptable, but either word ought to be usable for either task, if our editors will let us go that far.
—CJR, Nov./Dec. 2002
Addendum, Dec. 10th, 2004Thanks to Jerry Boggs, sports editor of the Middlesboro Daily News in Kentucky, for making clear that the sermon on “farther” and “further” went too far in its zeal for throwing off shackles.
Having read the entry, Boggs then read this on the wire, about an injured quarterback: “Pennington will have further tests Monday.”
So, Boggs asked in an e-mail, “ ‘Pennington will have FARTHER tests’ would also be acceptable?”
Technically, yes, but obviously it’s jarring; the arbitrary latter-day rule has succeeded all too well, and “farther tests” pretty much defies idiom these days. For “additional” the safer choice is likely to be “further.”
The day this was written, “push the limits much farther” popped up in print. Just fine, and a reminder that when talking about distance — literal or figurative — we can still flip a coin.
