You Are All Charlie Hebdo, Warns the Grammar Grump

That was some strange business that went down in Paris yesterday, wasn’t it, boys and girls? Couple of Muslim thugs and their fan boy killing all those people in the Charlie Hebdo magazine office over a few cartoons that took the mickey out of the prophet Muhammad.

The Grammar Grump has to confess that there have been times when he has felt like grabbing his AK-47 and squeezing off a few rounds in retaliation for a blasphemous usage. Just the other week, for example, his trigger finger began spazzing when he heard some sportscaster trip over the distinction between farther and further.

No decent person makes that mistake, boys and girls, and anyone who does should not be allowed to live; so let’s put on your bulletproof vests and see if we can’t sort this out before you find yourself pleading with the business end of an assault rifle.

1. How much (farther-further) is it to Cleveland?

2. The committee has agreed to give your recommendation (farther-further) study.

3. “Before we go any (farther-further),” he panted, “can I get you to sign this consent form?”

4. The (farther-further) I drove the more convinced I became that my GPS was on mushrooms.

5. Is it (farther-further) to Barstow or to San Bernadino from here?

If you chose farther for numbers 1, 4, and 5, you needn’t go underground or hire a food taster. If you made other choices, your life isn’t worth a split infinitive, you pork-eating infidel dog.

The confusion regarding farther and further is rooted in the fact that both words want to be the comparative form of far. Therefore, they split the difference without resorting to fatwas or jihad. Farther gets the call if some measurable physical distance is concerned. Further is preferred when the distance in question can be measured in time or amount.

Got that, boys and girls? For your sake, I hope so.

Until we meet again, remember, you are all Charlie Hebdo.