A Word, Please: When to use 'further' and 'farther'

Merriam-Webster adds that while further often is used to refer to physical distance, “I walked further than I had ever walked before,” the word farther can’t pinch hit for further for those non-distance usages. For example, you couldn’t use farther in “I must further investigate” or as a sentence modifier in “Further, there is evidence of foul play.”

Still, this dictionary is saying that there’s more overlap between these words than AP and Chicago allow. And you can use either word in “Joe drove farther/further than he had the day before.”

Note that the dictionary said that “currently” the words are diverging, which seems to fly in the face of Chicago’s, saying that a distinction between the words is “traditional.”

For more on this, I open a few good usage guides, including “Garner’s Modern American Usage” and “Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of English Usage.” From there it gets really interesting: “Farther and further are historically the same word, so it is not surprising that the two have long been used more or less interchangeably,” “Merriam-Webster’s” usage guide says.

Both report that differentiation between the two words is a recent phenomenon and not a tradition that’s being tossed aside.

So as an editor, I give each word its own job. But when I’m off the clock, I have no choice but to agree that these words sometimes are interchangeable.

JUNE CASAGRANDE is author of “It Was the Best of Sentences, It Was the Worst of Sentences.” She can be reached at JuneTCN@aol.com.