Comments on: The Plural of “Calf” is “Calves,” or is it?

By: neha

neha — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:33:39 +0000

You forgot
Wolf-Wolves

By: Dean

Dean — Sat, 22 May 2010 19:09:19 +0000

The plural of ‘dwarf’ in Middle English was ‘dwarven’, just as the plural of ‘elf’ was ‘elven’ (these were part of the former ‘weak’ declension of Anglo-Saxon, of which ox, oxen still survives).

In the northern dialects ‘dwarves’ and ‘elves’ was proper, and eventually the sothern forms passed out of usage. Since the vowels were sounded on either side of the ‘f’ it had to change from being voiceless to being voiced, thus the letter was written ‘v’.

In Anglo-Saxon, the letter ‘f’ was used for both sounds. Today, since the e’s have gone silent in the -es endings, there is no actual need to voice the ‘f’ as ‘v’ so the trend will continue to change from ‘calves’ to [kæfs] or [kăfs].

Another neat Middle English relic is the adjective ‘elfin’ which comes from the former possessive (genative) plural of ‘elf’ which was ‘elvene’ meaning “of the elves.”

By: Maeve

Maeve — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:06:33 +0000

Sarah,
The spelling “calf’s” is a possessive.
Ex. the calf’s mother is a cow.

The plural, if you aren’t going to spell it “calves,” would be written “calfs”.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 00:44:38 +0000

Alex, when you spell it calves and not calfs(which is supposed to be spelled calf’s I think) it makes me think of calves like the calves on a persons leg. Is that right?

By: Tony Hearn

Tony Hearn — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:57:53 +0000

Yet again we have the dialect versus standard issue. Standard English is by and large a construct, an artificial dialect, in fact. So long as the media and the education system were prepared to buy into it it flourished. This is now waning and the spoken vernaculars are reaffirming themselves. The printed language is more conservative and will maintain the standard longer, that is respond to change more slowly. In practice, those of us brought up against a fairly literary and educated background, wit parents who spoke a form of the standard language are going to feel more at home with ‘ knives, wives, leaves,’ etc. For many the spoken form is, and doubtless long has been, ‘knifes, wifes, leafs’
On ‘calves’ by the way, there is a marked difference of vowel length between the British (for the most part) and American speakers. In Britain we use a long vowel in calf, half etc., so we would say ‘cahves or caafs’, but not ‘kaffs’.