Over at the New Yorker, Caleb Crain tackles the ambiguity on the use of “farther” and “further” in contemporary writing:
Farther or further? I vary them more or less thoughtlessly in my writing, sometimes to the consternation of copy editors, a number of whom abide by the convention that farther is for literal distance and further for metaphoric distance. I don’t think the convention makes sense, however, and, when challenged, I cite the venerable and crotchety H. W. Fowler, who wrote in his 1926 “Dictionary of Modern English Usage” that “hardly anyone uses the two words for different occasions.”
