Mind your language
MY HUSBAND had just written a learned paper on Addison's disease or something unpleasant, and decided to show it to a journalist friend of his to see if the English was all right. One of the suggested corrections was of further to farther. 'Farther for distances; further means "additional",' was the explana- tion. My husband was not convinced, and nor am I.
The Oxford English Dictionary gets quite excited about farther, as well it might. Naturally, it all began with far. The Anglo-Saxons had their own form for the comparative frr, but by the High Middle Ages this had been displaced by farrer, on the analogy of the more regu- lar formation for adjectives and some adverbs. Ferrer held out till the 17th century, when it was conquered by fur- ther, or farther.
'Farther', says the OED grandly, 'is in origin a mere variant of further.' As an adverb it meant 'more forward'; as an adjective it meant 'anterior'. It is easy to see how, being similar in meaning, it came to be regarded as the comparative of far.
Just as all that was happening, various people were busy translating the Bible into English. In 1535 Coverdale ren- dered Job =Mid 11, 'Hither to shalt thou come, but no further.' Further is retained by the translators of the King James version. But they also used farther, for example, in the scene in Gethsemane, in Matthew xxvi 39.
Further has held its own, though, both as an adverb and an adjective, in the literal sense of distance beyond. Tennyson has: 'Not ever to be ques- tioned anymore/Save on the further side.' Jowett has: 'There is nothing fur- ther from his thoughts than scepti- cism.' Macaulay: 'It was not thought safe for the ships to proceed further in the darkness.'
There is no point in multiplying examples. Veronica was not alone in asking, as a little girl: Is it much further?'
Dot Wordsworth
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