Farther or Further?

Hey, guys. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson on "farther" and

"further". So these are two words in the English language that are commonly used interchangeably.

Some people say, "Well, both are correct. You can use both in any situation." Actually,

there is a small distinction, and regardless of the fact that people use "both" interchangeably,

and they use "both" in different situations or the same situation, you're actually kind

of wrong if -- grammatically, technically, you're wrong if you use "one" instead of "the

other" in a given situation. And I'll tell you which situation that is as we go through

this.

So on the board, we have two sentences, and one of them, you should be using "farther".

One of them, you should be using "further". So the first one says, "You will get farther

or further in your career if you study hard." The second one says, "Tokyo is farther or

further from Toronto than Berlin." Okay. So first, I'm going to tell you which one of

these is correct in each sentence, and then I will explain why. So first, we have, "You

will get farther/further in your career if you study hard." In this situation, you're

actually supposed to say, "further". Okay? Okay. Now, if you see that here, we use "further",

you have probably deduced that in the second sentence, we use "farther". So we say, "Tokyo

is farther from Toronto than Berlin."

When you look at these two sentences, what is the difference between these two ideas?

Okay? First of all, in the second one, when we're using "farther", we are talking about

a physical distance. Okay? So when you think of "farther", think of "physical distance".

So here we go, "physical distance". Now, here, "You will get further in your career if you

study hard." You can't actually measure distance in career by meters, or by kilometers, or

by miles. Right? What you're talking about is not a physical distance, but a figurative

distance. All right? So, for "further", this is for figurative distance.

For example, if you are having an argument with your spouse or a friend, and if they're

complaining a lot, and if you say, "Whoa, whoa, whoa. If you complain any further, I'm

going to be extremely angry." Right? So if they complain further, not a physical distance,

you can't measure complaining by distance. Right? Figuratively, you can. If you complain

more, that's what you mean. Then here, you should be using "further".

Now, in informal situations, again, most native speakers use these two words interchangeably.

And because they're used interchangeably, because it's in common practice, they're really...

It's not necessarily incorrect to use them both in the way that we're using them. So

this distinction, actually, it's a funny story. Before 1906, "further" was actually the older

word, and has been around for a lot longer time than "farther". And it was only in 1906

that Merriam-Webster, in the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, decided to make the distinction

between "farther" and "further". So the reason that even native speakers might have issues

with knowing the difference between "farther" and "further" is because we've only been distinguishing

between them for just over 100 years. Right?

Okay, guys. If you want to test your understanding of "farther" and "further", you can check out

the quiz on www.engvid.com. Good luck.