NOUNS ENDING IN -F, -FE: SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION OF PLURALS AND FUNCTIONAL SHIFTS TO VERBS. The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993

Reference > Usage > The Columbia Guide to Standard American English

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Kenneth G. Wilson (1923–). The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. 1993.

NOUNS ENDING IN -F, -FE: SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION OF PLURALS AND FUNCTIONAL SHIFTS TO VERBS


Some of these words add -s to make the plural; far more replace the -f or -fe with -ves for the plural. All reflexive pronouns add -ves: yourself becomes yourselves; myself becomes ourselves; himself, herself, and itself become themselves. Still other words do both, sometimes with a semantic distinction between the plurals. The spellings reflect the pronunciations of these consonants, an f sound for the voiceless one in, for example, wife (WEIF), a v sound for the voiced one in wives (WEIVZ).	1

Beef has two plurals, beeves and beefs, with a semantic distinction: beefs is slang for complaints or objections.	2
Calf (the animal) has two plurals, calves and calfs. The part of the leg has one plural, calves. The verb meaning “to give birth to a calf” is calve, and the participial adjective meaning “provided with calves (on the legs)” is calved.	3
Dwarf has two plurals, although dwarfs is much more common than dwarves. The verb in its past tense is always dwarfed.	4
Elf is usually elves in the plural, but both elfish and elvish are Standard spellings.	5
Handkerchief has two plural spellings, handkerchiefs and the less-common handkerchieves. The first spelling is sometimes pronounced with the v sound of the second.	6
Hoof has two plural spellings, hoofs and hooves, and the pronunciations of singular, plurals, and genitives reflect the two vowels: HOOF and HUF. The slang verb’s past tense is hoofed, as is the adjective.	7
Knife has one plural, knives, but the past tense of the verb is knifed, and the third person singular present tense is knifes.	8
Leaf has a plural, leaves, with a participial adjective, leaved. But the past tense of leaf (turning the pages of a book) is leafed; the past tense of leaf (growing leaves) may be either leafed or leaved.	9
Life has a plural, lives, with the same vowel. The participial adjective (as in long-lived) has a v in place of the f, but the second element of the combination may have either a long vowel (rhyming with drive) or a short vowel (rhyming with give). The plural of still life is still lifes.	10
Loaf has the plural loaves, but the verb loaf has the past tense loafed.	11
Scarf’s plural is scarves for the neckwear but scarfs for the carpenter’s joints. The past participle of the verb meaning “provided with a scarf to wear” and the past tense of the carpenter’s verb are both scarfed.	12
Sheaf has the plural sheaves. The verb is either sheaf or sheave, with past tense and participle both sheaved.	13
Shelf’s plural is shelves, and the verb is shelve, shelved, shelved.	14
Staff’s plural is staffs, except for the music staves and barrel staves, both pronounced to rhyme with braves. (The music staff also can have staffs as a plural.) The verb staff has a past tense and past participle staffed.	15
Turf has two plurals, turfs and turves; the verb is turf, turfed, turfed.	16
Wolf has one plural, wolves. The genitives are wolf’s and wolves’. The verb is wolf, wolfed, wolfed.	17

CONTENTS · BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

Click here to shop the Bartleby Bookstore.