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What is the plural of "dwarf", in your opinion.

Dwarfs
- 7 (9.3%)
Dwarves
- 68 (90.7%)

Total Members Voted: 75


Pages: 1 [2]

Author Topic: Plural of "dwarf"  (Read 2965 times)

Jacob/Lee

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #15 on: April 05, 2011, 10:21:23 pm »
Dwarves of course. Dwarfs sounds plain stupid.
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atomfullerene

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #16 on: April 05, 2011, 10:38:22 pm »
Haha, Tolkien win.   Seriously though, Dwarves was popularized by Tolkien, a professional linguist, because it sounds more...well...dwarfy.  And matches up with other similar words as mentioned above.  Prior to that dwarfs dominated-and still dominate in common language.  I still like dwarves better.  Compare:
http://ngrams.googlelabs.com/graph?content=Dwarfs%2C+Dwarves&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=0&smoothing=3
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Dwarfoloid

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #17 on: April 06, 2011, 07:48:49 am »
Dwarfs is plural of RL little people.

Dwarves is plural of common fantasy demi-human race.
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Dutchling

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #18 on: April 06, 2011, 09:03:31 am »
Wikipedia Dwarf (Middle Earth):

Spelling "Dwarves"
The original editor of The Hobbit "corrected" Tolkien's plural dwarves to dwarfs, as did the Puffin paperbound edition of The Lord of the Rings. According to Tolkien, the "real 'historical'" plural of dwarf is dwarrows or dwerrows. He referred to dwarves as "a piece of private bad grammar". In Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings it is explained that if we still spoke of dwarves regularly, English might have retained a special plural for the word dwarf as with goose - geese; despite Tolkien's fondness for it, the form dwarrow only appears in his writing as Dwarrowdelf, a name for Moria.
Tolkien used Dwarves, instead, which corresponds with Elf and Elves. In this matter, one has to consider the fact that the etymological development of the term dwarf differs from the similar-sounding word scarf (plural scarves). The English word is related to old Norse dvergr, which, in the other case, would have had the form dvorgr. But this word was never recorded, and the f/g-emendation (English/Norse) dates further back in language history.


« Last Edit: April 06, 2011, 09:19:04 am by Dutchling »
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jonny211

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #19 on: April 06, 2011, 04:30:41 pm »
Midget alcoholics.
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Double A

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #20 on: April 06, 2011, 04:52:37 pm »
Dwarves rolls off the tongue much more easily than dwarfs. I use dwarves.
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Jeoshua

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Re: Plural of "dwarf"
« Reply #21 on: April 06, 2011, 04:58:14 pm »
Quote from: Brian on April 05, 2011, 07:44:02 pm
Dwarfs if they are acting like like typical dwarfs.
Dwarves if they are in some way acting in some way superior--showing intelligence or ingenuity, or bringing a tear of joy your eye for the epic win.
Dorfs when they run out on a battlefield to pick up a sock.

This.

Also "Derfs" when they stand on a floor to remove it.
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Quote from: Encased in burning magma on March 27, 2011, 02:11:50 am
I like fortresses because they are still underground.
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