further to = "in addition to; besides" ?

[Ben Zimmer]

On Sat, Oct 23, 2010 at 7:36 PM, Arnold Zwicky wrote:
>
> On Oct 23, 2010, at 7:09 AM, Jon Lighter wrote:
>
>> I've never noticed this before, and I don't find it in OED. The writer
>> refers to the outbreak of war in 1914:
>>
>> 1996 Lloyd Clark in Ian Stewart & Susan L. Carruthers, eds. _War, Culture
>> and the Media_ (Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson U. P.) 40: "War was seen
>> by various groups as the way of achieving different things. Further to the
>> defeat of Germany and its allies, poets believed that war was an opportunity
>> for personal fulfillment.
>>
>> Prof. Clark is a prominent British military historian.
>
> (a) i'm familiar with this usage in British (formal/academic) English.
>
> (b) it's a natural development from the 'in addition, also' sentence-adverbial usage of
> "further". developing a prepositional 'in addition to' use in combination with NPs.
>
> (c) but i too don't find it in the OED. maybe not looking in the right places. oughta get in there.

I'm only familiar with it in the context of business correspondence
("further to your letter..."). Here's the relevant entry in the Oxford
Advanced Learner's Dictionary:

---
http://www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com/dictionary/further-to
further to
preposition (formal)
used in letters, emails, etc. to refer to a previous letter, email,
conversation, etc.
"Further to our conversation of last Friday, I would like to book the
conference centre for 26 June."
---

It's also in Garner's Modern American Usage, flagged as business
jargon to avoid.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org