Singular to plural....

[janzman]

...why is the 'f' changed to a 'v' for example in these words ...
1 knife...2 knives
1 scarf...2 scarves
I can't come up with any more examples but I'm sure there must be a lot.

[erin-x]

1 half.. 2 halves..

[tenrec]

Could it be anything to do with old english when f was used instead of s in written words? It's only a guess.

[MarkRae]

It's just the way English grammar works. It's common enough to be a "rule" though there are, of course, exceptions e.g. roofs...

[MarkRae]

Tenrec - for example...?

[Mamyalynne]

shelf - shelves
calf - calves
half - halves
elf - elves
wife - wives
knife - knives
thief - thieves
wolf - wolves
life - lives
leaf - leaves
elf - elves
yourself - yourselves

Not sure why but the above answer may well be part of the answer.

[Mamyalynne]

never copy and paste

life - lives is wrong on every level

[starone]

Dwarf - dwarfs.

[Mamyalynne]

or not, bye everyone

[MarkRae]

roof / roofs
proof / proofs

[DTCwordfan]

was rooves at one time, MR

[rojash]

This from Oxford Dictionaries online:

Spelling help
The most usual plural of roof is roofs, although rooves is sometimes used.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/definition/roof

[VHG]

I found the book "Mother Tongue" by Bill Bryson a good basic intro to the history of the English language and why we spell and speak like we do.

Cant remember all the details, but one of the "problems" is that the English language has evolved and developed from a whole mish mash of other languages.

It is a mixture of Latin, plus the Anglo Saxons (Germans), the Normans (French), the Vikings (Norse), and many others.

When the Normans invaded much of the legal and official language of the UK became based on French , but the peasants continued to speak in a language based on Anglo Saxon.

And of course before the days of mass communication and travel language (and spelling) developed differently in different parts of the country. In Shakespeare's time a person London may not understand a person from say Sussex (and vice versa).

Eventually of course the whole thing "merged" to become English as we know it today, but the "problems" with English come down to its strange history and development.

http://www.amazon.co....-Bryson/dp/014014305X

[tenrec]

Mark - in olden times they used to write half, but for halfs it might have been written as halff - or am I just talking b@llocks?

[janzman]

Of course you can always mix a noun with a verb and get the same result...
...I suffer grief therefore I grieve...thankx everyone

[MarkRae]

Yes indeed. Just like plurals of nouns ending in 'f', that's a "generally speaking" rule too. E.g. calf / calve, half / halve etc.

But not always. There's no 'groof' or 'drif', and 'strife' and 'strive' have completely different meanings...

[Jonathan-Joe]

The Wiki article
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_plural
says that it was the pronounciation of these worde in the past that determined the plural form, though that's not really saying anything more than "it's the rule!" But it is interesting that it mentions bath > baths, mouth > mouths, where the spelling of the plural is regular but pronounciation ("v" rather than "f") is like the examples in the OP.

[MarkRae]

> But it is interesting that it mentions bath > baths, mouth > mouths, where the spelling of the plural is regular but pronounciation ("v" rather than "f") is like the examples in the OP.

Seriously? MouF? MouVES?

[boxtops]

..and dwarves...

[Jonathan-Joe]

Mark, I certainly don't pronounce it "moufs".

[boxtops]

I think this is what tenrec meant http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_s