One of those grammatical faux pas that people sometimes make is in confusing the words “farther” and “further”. They do have distinctly different meaning and cannot be used interchangeably.
The easy way to remember it is that farther is a measure of distance: think, ‘is it far?” while further is a measure of degree: “how thick is your fur”.
Here are some example sentences:
- I can throw the ball farther than you.
- You can further your education with self-study courses.
- How much farther will we drive before we stop for the night?
- How much further will you read in that book before you turn out the light and go to sleep?
See the difference?
Farther is a measure of physical distance. Further is a measure of degree or proportion. If you keep the memory key of “How far – thick fur” in mind it should help you use these words correctly. Holly Jahangiri brings it all together for us with this example, “The son of a pro mountain climber attempting to scale Everest, furthers his career by climbing farther than his father.”
See now, you just had to start this bit of trouble and hurt my head at the same time. However, I do have “further my career” and “throw the ball a little farther” in my mind, so there must be some kind of distinction there. Now I want a cookie! 🙂
I just made some cherry-cheesecake cookies. Would you like some? They should soothe your head (sorry about that) and excite your tongue.