Andrea Sharaf

You know how the song goes: you say tomato, I say tomahto, you say potato, I say potahto. You say further, I say farther. Right? Well, not quite. Further and farther aren’t simply different ways of pronouncing the same word; they each have a distinct meaning. While both words have to do with measuring, what they measure is different. Read on.

1. Farther is used in reference to physical distance. Use farther when you’re talking about inches, miles, light-years or any physical distance, even if the units aren’t mentioned in the sentence.

I do declare: Borneo is farther from here than Timbuktu.

Because he wore his rabbit’s foot good luck charm, Skippy swam farther than any other dolphin in the Coral Sea.

In the examples above, the distance is physically measurable in miles or kilometers, so we use farther.

2. Further is used in reference to figurative distance.

Don’t push the limits any further, young man, or you’ll be in big trouble.

We’ve only scratched the surface; let’s explore this fascinating topic further tomorrow.

In these examples, the distance is figurative; you can’t physically measure rules or ideas, so we use further.

See? There’s no need to call the whole thing off, as Louis Armstrong sings. Just remember: farther = physical distance, further = figurative distance and you’ll be good to go farther than you’ve gone before…uh…or is that further?  You decide.