I’m posting a little later this week as I’ve been hard at work, reviewing my editors preliminary edits of the manuscript for Unspeakable.

I’ve learned quite a few things. Among them? I’m dash crazy – a fact I already knew. 😉

One of the things that surprised me though is that I used “further” incorrectly. Check out this sentence from Unspeakable:

I decide to take what little I can get and sink further into the couch, further into him.

My editor, Tanis, with ReVision Editing, changed it to this:

I decide to take what little I can get and sink farther into the couch, farther into him.

What’s the difference? Well, I wasn’t sure. So I asked my husband, a man who uses the word “tranche” in everyday conversation. True story. Over beers with friends, he used the word “tranche”. But I digress.

He wasn’t sure, but said he preferred my version.

So, I looked it up. And here’s what I found out:

‘Farther’ signifies distances. As in, “The hare is farther down the track than the turtle.”

Whereas, ‘further’ is a figurative term, as in, “You’ll get further in life, if you study hard.”

However, some dictionaries say that they can be used interchangeably. So, I guess it depends on who you believe and what feels right.

This is my final version of that sentence:

I decide to take what little I can get and sink farther into the couch, further into him.

I always meant the second ‘further’ to be figurative, as when she sinks into the couch, she is allowing the relationship to progress further.