rooves

[Lynne Murphy]

I must admit that a couple of times recently, it's only a spellchecker
that's kept me from putting 'rooves' in something I've been writing.  It
looks terrible, but it sounds right to me.

Lynne


--On Monday, February 4, 2008 11:13 am -0500 "Douglas G. Wilson"
<douglas at NB.NET> wrote:

>> NOAD recognizes the pronunciation of the plural pronunciaton of "roof"
>> with the /v/ variant, though not the spelling with <v>.
>
> MW3 shows <<roofs; also rooves>>. For comparison there is <<hooves;
> or hoofs>>, but no alternatives for <<knives>>, <<leaves>>.
>
> Various books declare "rooves" extinct or wrong or inadvisable. But
> many modern examples are apparently available at Google Books.



Dr M Lynne Murphy
Senior Lecturer in Linguistics and English Language
Arts B135
University of Sussex
Brighton BN1 9QN

phone: +44-(0)1273-678844
http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.com

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