this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.
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Would most native speakers actually pronounce "rooves" differently from "roofs"? Is "grooves" already pronounced differently from a hypothetical "groofs"?
There is a difference, but it depends on accent. I don't think anyone would notice in speech if you switched though
f is the voiceless labiodental fricative and v is the voiced labiodental fricative.
Basically for roofs your vocal cords don't vibrate on the final f sound. For rooves your vocal cords vibrate on the final v sound.
I know the difference between f and v, the question is whether it makes a difference in this specific case and if yes, whether most native English speakers actually know that. I'm not a native English speaker and words that end in -ooves aren't that common (when is the last time you said "grooves" or "hooves"?).
English is famously inconsistent about how written letters are pronounced, and there are a lot of accents.
Grooves and hooves are more common words than roofs.
I think I would notice if someone said groofs or hoofs (although that's also a word with a different meaning), but I'm really not sure I'd notice rooves vs roofs.
I am a native speaker. The pronunciation difference between those two words, even though one doesn’t actually exist, is only the vibration of vocal cords in the final sound. It’s like belief and believe.
I think there is a slight difference. Ooves is slightly longer and softer sounding than oofs.
Right now? Any if this vocalized in public puts you at some risk of deportation, NGL.
I think so, but might depend on thier accent or dialect .
Thats a joke, groofs isn't actually a word(yet 😅), the singular of grooves is groove.
What exactly do you think "hypothetical" means?
I somehow skipped that word when I read it 😅