I always imagine the past stretching behind and the first thing mentioned is now further away from me, so it should be the 'later'
If the past is behind you, isn't further away earlier in time? The Romans are further back than yesterday, right? So nearer should be later in time?
I often have to stop when doing filesystem datetime comparisons, to work out if I want greater-than or less-than, and picture it as Unix Epoch in seconds, the later time is a greater number, nearer things are closer and bigger and more recent, distant things are smaller, farther and more ancient.
If the past is behind you, isn't further away earlier in time? The Romans are further back than yesterday, right? So nearer should be later in time?
I often have to stop when doing filesystem datetime comparisons, to work out if I want greater-than or less-than, and picture it as Unix Epoch in seconds, the later time is a greater number, nearer things are closer and bigger and more recent, distant things are smaller, farther and more ancient.
(btw, it's former/latter)