How is “(in) given” written in the expression “neither (in) distance, nor about” - together or separately?

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Margarita Vorontsova

Philologist, proofreader, author blog about the Russian language.

In the Russian language there is a combination of a noun with the preposition “in the distance” and an adverb “in the distance”.

Noun most commonly used with dependent words:

• in the azure distance;
• in the distance of space;
• in the distance shining.

The presence of a dependent word is one hundred percent sign that we are dealing with a noun with a preposition, and not an adverb. So we write separately.

Adverb “Far away” is written together and means “at a great distance, far away”.

There are no dependent words in the expression "neither (in) distance, nor about". Here "(in) gave" can be replaced by "far". In addition, homogeneous members of a sentence are usually (but not always) expressed in words of one part of speech. And here "about" is an adverb. Therefore, we can confidently call "far away" an adverb and write this word together.

And you can also look into the collection of poems by Anna Akhmatova, because this is an expression from her poem "Lullaby" (1949):

I do not see a falcon
Not far away, not near.
Buy, buy, buy, buy!
Ay, ay, ay, ay ...