Linguistics Humor

1658 readers

1 users here now

Do you like languages and linguistics ? Here is for having fun about it

For serious linguistics content: !linguistics@mander.xyz

Rules:

1- Stay on Topic
Post about linguistics or language humor & memes
2- No Racism/Violence
3- No Public Shaming No shaming someone that could be identifiable or recognizable
4- Avoid spam and duplicates

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

Jakylla@sh.itjust.works

lvxferre@mander.xyz

Time to change the English language (media.piefed.social)

submitted 2 days ago by PugJesus@piefed.social to c/linguistics_humor@sh.itjust.works

8 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 8 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] RickyRigatoni@piefed.zip 11 points 2 days ago

I call them milves instead of milfs.

[–] PugJesus@piefed.social 7 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Explanation: JRR Tolkien, a foundational writer of fantasy in the mid-20th century AD, disliked 'dwarfs' as the plural of 'dwarf', and 'elfs' as plural of 'elves'.

So when writing his (eventually immensely popular and influential) books, The Hobbit, and The Lord of the Rings, he used 'dwarves' and 'elves', even making special note of it so the reader didn't think he just made a mistake. Considering Tolkien was an English professor who specialized in linguistic history, who was gonna try and tell him that they were a bigger authority than him on how antiquated words should be inflected?

This usage is now standard in English, replacing 'dwarfs' and 'elfs' almost entirely.

[–] Reverendender@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 days ago

#tolkiendidnothingwrong

[–] IndigoGollum@lemmy.world 6 points 2 days ago (2 children)

"dwarves" and "elves" are consistent with things like "wolves" instead of "wolfs", "lives" instead of "lifes".

Fun fact: this never got applied to dwarf stars, which are still "dwarfs".

[–] kindnesskills@literature.cafe 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

"Dwarfs" is just short for "Dwarf S(tars)". The plural is on star, not dwarf, and hidden in the shortened version.

(Source: my ass, pleasedon'tquotemeonthis)

[–] otp@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 days ago

Nah, I think for titles,. it's an exception.

The Toronto Maple Leafs, for example, are not the Maple Leaves.

[–] Onomatopoeia@lemmy.cafe 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Except the etymology of elf/elfs would disagree, and Tolkien was just wrong.

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 1 points 2 days ago

To be fair to him, he acknowledges that dwarfs would be the accepted version and justifies it by saying that if we talked about dwarfs or dwarves more often in regular English, we might have had a nonstandard plural for them as we do with many other common subjects. Elves also pre-dates him significantly, though I don't doubt that he was a significant factor in it becoming the standard version. It seems there are even some examples of singular elve