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Re: THEORY: derivation question

From:Herman Miller <hmiller@...>
Date:Friday, March 26, 1999, 4:30
On Thu, 25 Mar 1999 17:50:52 -0500, Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> wrote:

>Padraic Brown wrote: >> It threw me for a loop, and no mistake. I'd only ever heard "dwarfs" =
as a
>> verb. > >Here I was wondering if I spoke an unusual dialect. I also use >"dwarves" as the plural, same with "elves", even tho I rarely have the >opportunity to use either one, especially _elves_.
The first Disney animated feature had the title _Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs_, but recent fiction and role-playing games all use "dwarves" as = far as I know. Somewhere between 1937 and today, "dwarves" seems to have replaced "dwarfs" as the more common plural (except in certain technical usages, e.g., "white dwarfs" in astronomy). I wouldn't be surprised if = the popularity of Tolkien's works, and his influence on other writers in the genre, had something to do with that. -- languages of Kolagia---> = +---<http://www.io.com/~hmiller/languages.html>--- Thryomanes /"If all Printers were determin'd not to print = any (Herman Miller) / thing till they were sure it would offend no = body, moc.oi @ rellimh <-/ there would be very little printed." -Ben = Franklin