Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2023 September 26

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September 26

Get the West out of Dodge

I have somewhere in my memory the idea that it was said of Dodge City, Kansas that You can go farther west, but you can't go further west, using one of the two proffered distinctions between the two words.

This distinction being that farther is literal distance but further can be more metaphorical. The other idea is that farther means "a greater distance away", whereas further denotes continuing along a path.

Anyway, I tried Googling it, and came up empty. I'm sure I didn't make it up. Can anyone find the origin of this saying? --Trovatore (talk) 19:03, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

This has been pondered many times:

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 June 6#Further or farther a field or afield

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2007 September 8#Further/farther

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2011 March 7#"Farther" in British English

Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2016 April 5#Irregular comparative and superlative

The Oxford English Dictionary says:

Farther

is

in origin a mere variant of FURTHER...The primary sense of further, farther is 'more forward, more onward'; but this sense is practically coincident with that of the comparative degree of far, when the latter word refers to real or attributed motion in some particular direction. Hence further, farther came to be used as the comparative of far, first in the special application just mentioned and ultimately in all senses, displacing the regular comparative farrer. In standard Eng. the form farther is usually preferred where the word is intended to be the comparative of far, while further is used when the notion of far is altogether absent; there is a large intermediate class of instances in which the choice between the two forms is arbitrary.

The word "farther" may be used either as an adjective or an adverb. The word "further" may also be used as a verb. 2A02:C7B:113:1E00:8EC:E016:111:57CE (talk) 15:42, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Yes, thanks, but I wasn't asking about further v farther. I was asking about the specific quote about Dodge City, or some near variant of it. --Trovatore (talk) 16:38, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

Scanning periodicals, I found multiple references to the topic your quote alludes to. The idea is that you can head in the direction West from Dodge City, but you can't get a town that is more culturally "west" than Dodge City, referring to the town's repuation as being the most lawless old west frontier town. This is discussed at length in "Where is the American West" by Walter Nugent in Montana The Magazine of Western History, 1992. Similar discussions occur in multiple publications by Patricia Limerick and William Cronon, all making references to each other and many other historians. I did not find that exact quote in any of the publications. 97.82.165.112 (talk) 19:46, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Thanks. Those sound like interesting reads. --Trovatore (talk) 20:01, 28 September 2023 (UTC)

Missing

On the page for Wikipedia's first edit, I remember there once was a link for the first edit to the Home page that brought you to text saying "This is the new WikiPedia!". But when I tried looking at it again today, I couldn't find it. Can anyone find the edit id for that edit or just give me the link? Stickmanzero (talk) 21:59, 26 September 2023 (UTC)

What you are looking for is https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=HomePage&oldid=908493298 (not to be confused with https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:UuU&oldid=291430). GeoffreyT2000 (talk) 03:46, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

thank you Stickmanzero (talk) 00:29, 29 September 2023 (UTC)