Am I having a senior moment or what?

It's panto season here in Perth (school holidays you know) - and Snow White's on stage doing her stuff with the seven little people at the Regal Theatre.

There's heaps of ads on TV and flyers in all the shopping centres - all of which refer to "...the Seven Dwarfs". My first reaction was that the promoter was a cretin because I thought it should be "dwarves". The folk at work agree, but my Chambers and my son's Macquarie Junior are silent on the matter. Now I'm feeling all insecure and unsure.

help

please

it's not fun getting old

..............

stales

(PS The flyer advises that this is "The stage Adaptation of the BROTHERS GRIMM (their caps.) Immortal Story" Ah, those abused apostrophes again!!)

Search on Yahoo! gives it both ways. I think Disney original was "Dwarfs".

Am I having a senior moment or what?

What?

Seriously, it looks like either is correct. The word was originally not with an f but with a gh, cognate with German Zwerg. The brick and mortar OED doesn't give a citation in f till the 15th century, so we're out of the OE voiced-between-vowels rule. The OED also gives plurals both dwarfs and dwarves; the former from 1770, 1834 and 1894 and the latter from 1818.

Ya pays yer nickel and ya takes yer cherce.

OE voiced-between-vowels rule. The OED also gives plurals both dwarfs and dwarves;

Well, Faldage, you made short work of that query!

From Appendix F of The Lord of the Rings:

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.

Well, I for one have learnt something.

Many thanks for your responses.

stales

Well, since dwarfs is shorter than dwarves, I'll side with dwarfs.

Speaking of senior moments, I'm having one of those jamais vu moments in which the word dwarves looks like the strangest word on earth. I see wharves in it, and wharves doesn't concoct a single image relating to a little man--unless a little man who works by the sea. Title of book: Dwarves at the Wharves. Whole thing looks jamais vu to me. (Also, Dwarfs at the Wharfswould work, too.

Best regards,
WordWharves

All of the dwarfs are now working underground in Paris, where they wander the tunnels to keep the trains running on time. They are, of course, known as Metro-Gnomes.

This is getting to be a habit ...

Ol' TEd had a good vacation and he's back and rollin'. Smoke 'em if you've got 'em. I heard that somewhere, I can't remember where

post edit That's a cigar reference, right?

This is getting to be a habit ...

Or a Hobbit?

In reply to:

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All of the dwarfs are now working underground in Paris, where they wander the tunnels to keep the trains running on time. They are, of course, known as Metro-Gnomes.

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Purely a matter of eco-gnomics.



Bingley