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Note: I am aware of the basic meaning and usage of far from and far away.

This post is NOT duplicate of Use of 'Far' and 'Far away.'. Since the answer to that post does not mention idiomatic and far from at all, besides that post is talking about physical distance rather than words-distance in sentence.

An ELL post gives a nice explanation. "Far from..[x]" states a relative position from which you are measuring the distance.

So, I guess the following sentence uses far from in the right way.

Cambridge isn't far from London

On the other hand, "Far away" presumes you are speaking relative to your present location.

A: "The city is far away"

That city is far from where the guy A lives.

Similar, I used far from in my another post (When the verb an adverb describes is far away, what should I do?)

I listened to the pronunciation of who on Cambridge Dictionary carefully.

(in the example sentence above, the adverb "carefully" is) a bit far from "listened".

question

Provided that post is to discuss the position of the adverb "carefully", similar to the guy A in previous example, is it grammatical and idiomatic to say in the following way?

the verb "listened" is far away.

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    Does this answer your question? Use of 'Far' and 'Far away.'
    – Astralbee
    Mar 5, 2020 at 8:57
  • @Astralbee Thank you. Although your link does not really answer my OP. Since the answer to that post does not mention idiomatic and far from at all, besides that post is talking about physical distance rather than words-distance in sentence. Btw, are you trying to close my OP?
    – WXJ96163
    Mar 5, 2020 at 9:07
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    To use far away to describe the position of a word in a sentence seems odd to me. You could say that the verb was widely separated from the adverb in the sentence.
    – Kate Bunting
    Mar 5, 2020 at 9:25
  • My guy, I think you're way overthinking your Stack Exchange posts. This is a question about the grammar of a question about the grammar of another question. I get that you want to learn all you can, but surely that time would be better spent having conversations or reading books.
    – the-baby-is-you
    Mar 5, 2020 at 17:25
  • "Cambridge isn't far from London" vs "Cambridge isn't far away from London". The duplicate would seem to answer your question.
    – CJ Dennis
    Mar 7, 2020 at 12:27

1 Answer 1

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Logically, all measurements of distance are between two points - a starting point and an end point. Something that is "far away" from one place might be quite near to another, so it is all relative.

When referring to the distance between two places, it is necessary to use the preposition "from" to indicate the starting point, for example:

London is 120 miles from Birmingham.

However, sometimes the starting point doesn't need to be included in your statement if it is already understood where you are speaking about. For example, if you were in Birmingham and it was obvious that you were using that as a starting point, you could say:

London is 120 miles away.

There is no need to use "from" because you are not mentioning the starting point. However, if it wasn't obvious and you meant to use your current location, you could say:

London is 120 miles away from here.

The same is true if you are using a term like "far" instead of a specific measurement:

  • London is far from here.
  • London is far from Birmingham
  • London is far away.
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  • Thanks for your comprehensive explanation. Your explanation is about physical distance. My concern is if it is idiomatic to use them when talking about sentence structure.
    – WXJ96163
    Mar 5, 2020 at 13:13
  • The quoted explanation about physical distance situation in my OP is also from you! You've answered for that situation in earlier post. I gave the link at the beginning of my OP.
    – WXJ96163
    Mar 5, 2020 at 13:17

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