走得越远,离自己越近 The Farther I Walk, The Closer I Get To Me by Hong Mei

As adverbs, they still are interchangeable when applied to distance (whether spatial, temporal, or metaphorical). For much of their history the words have been used interchangeably. Welcome to English.įurther is the older of the two, with farther originating from it as a variant in Middle English. In certain cases you would do well to use one over the other, in other cases there is a degree of leeway, and in still others it doesn’t much matter which one you use. The problem of distinguishing between further and farther is compounded by the fact that each of these words can be an adverb, adjective, or a verb, and has multiple meanings in some of these parts of speech. Neel Mukherjee, The New York Times The Origins of ‘Further’ vs. Kilda, which is another (nearly) hundred miles further west. Without that last-minute salvation, I would have had to return next summer to get to St. Tom Phillips, The Guardian (London, Eng.), 17 Jun. The most common quick answer is usually something along the lines of ' farther is for physical distance and further is for figurative distance.' As is often the case, however, simple rules run into the buzzsaw of actual usage.įurther down the river, the boat carrying Phillips and Pereira powered homewards through the darkness towards a perfect full moon. The case of further and farther has been common enough over the past hundred-plus years that dozens of usage guides have had a crack at coming up with a simple explanation. They've been mixed up for what seems forever.

走得越远,离自己越近 The Farther I Walk, The Closer I Get To Me by Hong Mei