How to Remember When to Use “further” Versus “further”
The English language is full of words that sound the same and mean similar things, but retain their special place if we want to use them accurately. Who and whom . Affect and effect . Empathy and empathy . The best thing . And the most annoying ones lay, lay, lay and lay . Another way to confuse people is that “about such similar things” is farther than “ farther” .
Now, before we go any further, we must admit that the reason you can mix them is because they have been mixed and used interchangeably for so long that the water is quite cloudy. As Merriam-Webster notes:
The problem of distinguishing between ” further” and ” further” is compounded by the fact that each of these words can be an adverb, adjective or verb and has multiple meanings in some of these parts of speech. In some cases, you will be better off using one over the other, in other cases there is some leeway, and in others, it doesn’t really matter which one you use. Welcome to English.
But we don’t need to get lost in the weeds here. Both words are used to refer to a greater degree of something. To choose the right one, in most cases the difference is simple: use “ further” when talking about physical distance, and use “ further” for figurative distance.
You ran further today than yesterday. Your parents live further away from you than your sister. The road is closed, you cannot go further. However, you are looking forward to continuing your career. We will further illustrate this here. Do we need to discuss this further?
If you need a trick to remember which is which, remember what next refers to how far away something is. Further applies to everything else.