Rooves or roofs

That's the way it's pronounced by some people not everyone.

is it really pronounced ''rooves'' and not [ru:fs].

"Rooves" would be how I would pronunce it, but I've also heard it the other way.

in Canada, we say (and make it a point to say) "rooFs". I don't know if you guys hear it, but we definatly notice that when Americans say roofs, it sounds more like "ruffs".

That's definitely a regional thing. Perhaps in some parts of Michigan and up-state New York (the area around Canada) they say "ruff," but that is definitely not the common pronunciation. I have heard people with accents that say "ruff"; I'm just not familiar with where this is common.

I;ve heard anyone say ''roof'' as ''ruff'' that would be pronounce [r^f]. It is most often pronounce [ru:f] with the oo sound in food. But, I have heard people pronounce it [ruf] with the oo sound in wood before.

This is how these words are commonly pronounced.

roof [ru:f]
roofs [ru:vz] or [ru:fs]

There is no such word as ''rooves''.

Correction: I've never heard.

Pet hate: People who think the plural of face is fazes and that the plural of place is plazes.

Sorry, dad.

Actually, there is more than one correct answer to this question. "Hooves", "hoofs", "dwarves", "dwarfs", and "roofs", are all acceptable forms of plurals (depending mainly on region). However, the forms that are the most widely accepted as correct are: "dwarfs", "hooves", "roofs". In addition, the correct plural of the title "father-in-law" is "fathers-in-law". The phrase "son-of-a-gun", however, is considered only one phrase; its plural would be "son-of-a-gun" with an "s" attatched to the end to indicate that the phrase should be applied to more than one personage. Also, the word "rooves" is not considered correct, and would be difficult to find in any dictionary. I hope that this helps to clear things up.

I read once that the word "dwarf" and "elf" were pluralized as "dwarfs" and "elfs," until Tolkien dediced to use a "v" in the plurals. Does anybody know if this is true?

I don't know how it originated, but I know I spell the Tolkien way, like the good little nerd girl that I am. My guess though would be that as dedicated a linguist as JRR was, he wouldn't have arbitrarily made up an new spelling. Perhaps he was just ressurecting a spelling of years gone by.

"We can't completely blame Tolkien. The OED has both in the first half of the 19th century:"

http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000293.html

I'm so glad to have read this, very interesting! Thanks Jim!