Date: Sun, 22 Apr 2001 23:34:48 -0700 (PDT) From: <gsutter@FreeBSD.org> To: jmallett@newgold.net, gsutter@FreeBSD.org, freebsd-doc@freebsd.org Subject: Re: docs/26789: plural of dwarf is dwarves Message-ID: <200104230634.f3N6Ymr22677@freefall.freebsd.org>
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Synopsis: plural of dwarf is dwarves State-Changed-From-To: open->closed State-Changed-By: gsutter State-Changed-When: Sun Apr 22 23:08:51 PDT 2001 State-Changed-Why: Both "dwarfs" and "dwarves" are now acceptable plurals for "dwarf", although "dwarfs" is without doubt the more proper. Perhaps we should change it to "dwarrows" in honor of the master? A modern dictionary reference: http://www.dictionary.com/cgi-bin/dict.pl?term=dwarves From Lord of the Rings, Appendix F (II), On Translation: ------ It may be observed that in this book as in The Hobbit the form dwarves is used, although the dictionaries tell us that the plural of dwarf is dwarfs. It should be dwarrows (or dwerrows), if singular and plural had each gone its own way down the years, as have man and men, or goose and geese. But we no longer speak of a dwarf as often as we do of a man, or even of a goose, and memories have not been fresh enough among Men to keep hold of a special plural for a race now abandoned to folk tales, where at least a shadow of truth is preserved, or at last to nonsense-stories in which they have become mere figures of fun. But in the Third Age something of their old character and power is still glimpsed, if already a little dimmed [...] It is to mark this that I have ventured to use the form dwarves, and so to remove them a little, perhaps, from the sillier tales of these latter days. http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/query-pr.cgi?pr=26789 To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-doc" in the body of the message
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