Author: Kirk

“Farther” vs. “Further”

Adjectives, Adverbs, Versus

I often hear these two words used interchangeably.

Problem:
These two words, whether as adjectives or as adverbs, are not quite synonyms.

Explanation:
Although it is true that “farther” and “further” have been used interchangeably for years, grammarians today increasingly consider these two words to have a physical-versus-metaphorical distinction.

As an adjective, the primary meaning of the word “farther” is more remote or distant than some place or something closer.

An example of the use of “farther” as an adjective is “The truck is on the farther side of the warehouse.”

As an adverb, the primary meaning of the word “farther” is to or at a great distance.

An example of the use of “farther” as an adverb is “Chuck Yeager flew farther toward outer space than did any of his contemporaries.”

As an adjective, the primary non-“farther” meaning of the word “further” is more extended.

An example of the use of “further” as an adjective is “Any further delay in our flight home would mean that we would not be home for Christmas.”

As an adverb, the primary non-“farther” meaning of the word “further” is to or at a more advanced point.

An example of the use of “further” as an adverb is “I may not go further with my studies until I pass that exam.”

Solution:
Use “farther” only for physical distance; prefer “further” for metaphorical distance (in space or time).

“poorly-written piece”

Adverbs, Hyphens

I saw this the other day.

Problem:
No hyphen should appear in this phrase.

Explanation:
When an adverb, such as “poorly”, that ends in L-Y together with another word, such as the past participle “written”, occur before and modify a noun, no hyphen should appear between the -ly adverb and the other word that together form a compound word.

This is in contrast to adverbs that do not end in L-Y.

For example, a “well-written piece” — with a hyphen between “well” and “written” — is correct.

I tried to compare “poorly-written piece” — with the hyphen — to “poorly written piece” — without the hyphen — in Google, but I did not determine how to force Google to retain the hyphen in the requested search for the hyphenated phrase, even though I put the quotation marks around the hyphenated phrase.

If you know how to force Google to retain punctuation — such as a hyphen — in a search phrase, then please contact me. Thanks!

Solution:
“poorly written piece”

“Dipthong”

Mispronunciations, Misspellings, Nouns

I heard someone say this the other day.

Problem:
This is a mispronunciation that often is tied to a misspelling.

Explanation:
The correct noun is “diphthong” — spelled D-I-P-H-T-H-O-N-G — which dates back to the mid-1400s and means a monosyllabic, gliding speech sound that varies continuously but that is considered to be a single phoneme.

The word “diphthong” is formed from the prefix “di”, which means two, and the Greek word “phthongos”, which means voice or sound.

Examples of diphthongs include the vowel combination at the end of “toy” and the vowel combination in “boil”.

I believe that the mispronunciation of “diphthong” could come from misspelling it as D-I-P-T-H-O-N-G because it is extremely rare in English to have P-H followed by T-H.

Or the misspelling of “diphthong” could come from the mispronunciation of it, again because of the rarity in English of having P-H followed by T-H.

The correct pronunciation is obtained by recognizing that P-H in “diphthong” has an F sound.

For fun, I searched Google for each of the following (with the quotation marks, to avoid variations) and got about the indicated numbers of matches:

  • “diphthong” — spelled D-I-P-H-T-H-O-N-G — 224,000 matches
  • “dipthong” — spelled D-I-P-T-H-O-N-G — 25,700 matches

This tells me that Web authors have favored the correct spelling over the incorrect spelling by a ratio of 8.72-to-1, which is not very good.

Solution:
“Diphthong”