Merriam-Webster says further is fine in basically any situation you could use farther, and farther is for physical distance only.
I feel like people around here mostly use further so it’s not really being “misused?” Never heard someone talking about farthering their goals, sounds very unnatural to my ear.
Killing the cop in your head includes editors. It’s one thing to correct for content and overall comprehensibility it’s another to get on this granular elements of style bullshit when the language is in common usage.
Merriam-Webster says further is fine in basically any situation you could use farther, and farther is for physical distance only.
I feel like people around here mostly use further so it’s not really being “misused?” Never heard someone talking about farthering their goals, sounds very unnatural to my ear.
Sorry but an editor mentioned this to me when looking over my writing a few years ago and it’s lasered itself into my brain ever since.
Killing the cop in your head includes editors. It’s one thing to correct for content and overall comprehensibility it’s another to get on this granular elements of style bullshit when the language is in common usage.
“N-N-Nooo, you can’t just follow obscure grammatical rules that no one cares about!”
“Haha, it’s-farther-not-further machine go brrr.”