GIVE ANSWERS - English

Vote now!ענה
Hello, could you please explain ”far out” in the following sentence?”I’ve got an exciting story about pirates, treasure and murder, set on a tropical island far out at sea.”

GIVE ANSWERS

AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2022

”far out” in your example - a long distance away from the seashore.

”far out” is also commonly used for ”ocean” and ”space”.

”far out on the ocean” = far from the ocean shore.

”far out in space” = far from Earth (usually).

  • AussieInBg profile picture AussieInBgMay 2022
    ”far” here does function like ”very much” to describe ”out”.

    There is a small difference between using ”far out” and ”far away”.

    The preposition ”out” gives the suggestion that something is a long distance from the observer, but possibly travelled from the position of the observer at some point in time, or the observer travelled to that point, such as a coast or island.

    ”away” emphasises that there is a long distance between the observer and the point and does not suggest that the observer had been at that point before.

    In the case of your sentence, the author probably used ”far out at sea” rather than ”far away at sea” because the author might have been to that island before.