[Lexicog] Is it 'dwarfs' or 'dwarves'?

[David Tuggy]

Tolkien was famous for insisting on his own versions of words, and I 
suspect "the colossal error" is a lateral intermolar. I understand that 
"elven" instead of "elfin" is his coinage. I think he found "dwarfs", 
"dwarfish", "elfin", etc., too "cutesy" for his purposes.

--David Tuggy


Mike Sangrey wrote:

> I have a somewhat off-topic question.
>
> My wife is doing some study of Tolkien and discovered he spelled
> 'dwarfs' wrong consistently throughout his writings.  When she told me
> that I immediately questioned it, thinking that some critic was being
> overly critical.  Well, it turns out that Tolkien admitted "the colossal
> error' in one of his letters (always go back to the sources <smile>).
>
> Well, we looked up 'dwarf' in our dictionary and discovered that it
> pluralizes 'dwarf' as 'dwarfs' and 'dwarves'.  So, we wondered, has
> Tolkien single-handedly introduced the new spelling?
>
> Would someone lookup 'dwarf' in the OED and tell me what their entry
> says regarding the origin of the plural 'dwarves'?
>
> Thanks!
>
> -- 
> Mike Sangrey
> msangrey AT BlueFeltHat.org
> Landisburg, Pa.
>                         "The first one last wins."
>             "A net of highly cohesive details reveals the truth."
>
>
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