Indeed, I can; for instance could I not argue as follows:
"The use of further/farther is considerably confused. Often farther refers to additional distance and further to additional time, amount, or other abstract matters. Admittedly, this is a simple guideline, but one that need not necessarily be agreed with. For instance farther and further have been used more or less interchangeably throughout most of their history, and only currently are they showing signs of divergence. As adverbs they continue to be used interchangeably whenever spatial, temporal, or metaphorical distance is involved. But where there is no notion of distance, further is used. Further is also used as a sentence modifier, whilst farther is not. Thus a polarizing process appears to be taking place in their adjective use. Farther is taking over the meaning of distance and further the meaning of addition.
But, and this is the crux of the issue, the two words may often be fundamentally interchangeable, with only partial specialization. It is cannot be considered definitive that the words are already distinct. Additionally, there is also a need to gain an accurate reflection of usage, in the United States, Great Britain, and Australia, which need is of particular pertinence for IWers.
Though it is possible to argue, primarily based on much higher frequency, that farther still serves a distinct purpose in American English, the argument is much harder for the United Kingdom and Australia. Farther is so rare that it clearly cannot be serving an important distinct purpose. Farther is less specialized in these regions, seeming to serve only as a limited alternative to further. In American English, the limited specialization of farther creates the impression of a distinct word, but further can always be used. Not one case of a noun following farther exists in the American corpora, but almost every case of farther can be matched with at least one nearly identical instance using further."?
Does that help to clear it up?
