why does the plural form of thief is thieves and chief is chiefs, proof is proofs, and scarf is scarfs?

Question

the rule says that if a singular noun ends in f or fe change f and fe to ve and add s. ex. wife-wives or leaf-leaves.

Answer 1

In english grammar there are always exceptions to every rule - they don't have to have a rhyme or reason to them.

Good Luck!!!

Answer 2

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RE:
why does the plural form of thief is thieves and chief is chiefs, proof is proofs, and scarf is scarfs?
the rule says that if a singular noun ends in f or fe change f and fe to ve and add s. ex. wife-wives or leaf-leaves.

Answer 3

Thief Of Thieves

Answer 4

There are two possible reason for this:

(1) It has to do with the morphology of the words. Morphology has to do with what you have just noted: The various affixes and roots and the formation of words in a language. With the presence of a specific morpheme, it could result in a change to the morpheme (which in this case is -s to something else).

(2) This has to do with the phonology of the words. Phonology is the sound system of a language. When certain sounds are surrounded by certain sounds (called an environment), they can change to become a different sound. Because of this change, we have to accompany it in the difference in spelling. From this, you can form certain phonological "rules" that can be applied when applying certain sounds. This can be said for morphology as well.

However, with English, it's hard to say because many of the words that are in the language are borrowed, so what might be applied to one word will not apply to another. There could be groups of words that certain rules will apply to, but others it won't.

Answer 5

Thanks for the hint, I didn't know that one either. I stumbled on the Greek words of cactus-cacti, hippopotamus and hippopotamuses (that's the yahoo-spell check version) or hippopotami. Journalists still can't figure out data and datum, and neither can most computer geeks.

That's the fun thing about English. It evolves naturally, and what works, works. Somehow. It also takes up less space and type than Romance languages.
English is a cool language. Glad I learned it as a kid. Ya dig?

Answer 6

Yep English is a strange and interesting language :-)

I think it because English has come from so many other languages - taking bits from all of them

Plurals have so many exceptions to the rules - think of sheep and sheep, goose and geese, mouse and mice!

Im sure for non English speakers English is probably incredibly difficult to WRITE correctly (as opposed to speaking it - if someone says "sheeps" you know they mean the plural of sheep even if it isnt exactly correct)

Answer 7

How Do You Spell Chief

Answer 8

When the f is preceded by a consonant, change the f to v and add -es. Ex. wolf - wolves

When the f is preceded by a vowel, add -s.
Ex. chief - chiefs

Thieves, is an exception to the rule.

Answer 9

The plural of scarf is scarves.

Answer 10

It's scarves.