As the title says. I see a lot of people calling it either one or the other, but I'm not sure as to the "official" plural form of it. Could somebody enlighten me as to what it is? Or are they both valid methods of spelling it?
As the title says. I see a lot of people calling it either one or the other, but I'm not sure as to the "official" plural form of it. Could somebody enlighten me as to what it is? Or are they both valid methods of spelling it?
The correct english and Warhammer term is Dwarfs. Tolkien didn't like that and invented Dwarves which has become and acceptable alternative in english. For this Warhammer based board the correct term is Dwarfs.
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I agree with Tolkien, and way prefer Dwarven and Elven to Dwarvish or Elvish.
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For Warhammer, Dwarfs works better than Dwarves. The V sound is softer and has a very reverent feel about it, which is fine for Middle Earth but a bit airy for the more practical Warhammer incarnation of the dwarfy type folks.
That and it's so they can go "Look! Look! We didn't just copy Tolkien, see?"
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Warhammer is definitely Dwarfs.
I always thought the proper english was Dwarves, but i guess Gres' post put paid to that!
Darrows is another name for em. Can't remember where though.
Not here it isn't.
So it is "Dwarfs" after all.
Side note: Where does the word "Dawi" come into it? I've seen Dargon use it mostly, but some others, most notably on Bugmans, also use it.
Dawi is the WHFB Dwarves name for themselves.
Wouldn't it properly actually be "dwarves" or "dwarfs", ie. without capital D.
As far as I know, in English language names and species are written without capital letter, despite the contrary way of doing it by GW.
It's Dwarfs in army books, dwarfs in fiction and in speech. But it's always with an 'f'.
As far as I know at least languages are written with a capital letter in English, for example Finnish.
Being an old Tolkien fanatic, I always use dwarves and elves, to me elfs and dwarfs just sounds wrong...
I didn't think it was of any importance, so long as the person you are talking to knows what your saying. But then, that would be my attitude as I am a hroiblle spelller.
I think Dwarfs sounds more tough to be honest which more or less sums up thier character.
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I looked this up out of curiosity earlier before i'd seen this thread and the Oxford English dictionary gives 'dwarves' and 'dwarfs' as the correct plural spelling...irritating isn't it?, it's like there's no closure, ho hum...
Languages and nationalities yes - races and species not as far as I know.Originally Posted by Megilain
As far as I know at least languages are written with a capital letter in English, for example Finnish.
It's the difference between common and proper nouns. There are many dwarfs but only one Khazalid language. GW's capitalisation of race names is just a convention used in their army books.
Tolkien explained his use of dwarves thus:
No reviewer (that I have seen), although all have carefully used the correct dwarfs themselves, has commented on the fact (which I only became conscious of through reviews) that I use throughout the 'incorrect' plural dwarves. I am afraid it is just a piece of private bad grammar, rather shocking in a philologist; but I shall have to go on with it. Perhaps my dwarf since he and the Gnome are only translations into approximate equivalents of creatures with different names and rather different functions in their own world may be allowed a peculiar plural. The real 'historical' plural of dwarf (like teeth of tooth) is dwarrows, anyway: rather a nice word, but a bit too archaic. Still I rather wish I had used the word dwarrow.
Quote taken from The Letters of JRR Tolkien Letter 17 (to Stanley Unwin, Chairman of Allen & Unwin dayed 15 October 1937).
Hope this helps!
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Yeah, the capitalisation thing is GW house style. You don't notice so much when it's Elves or Skaven or whatever, but Men just looks really, really silly, not to mention a little pretentious.
Idiots... nothing can live forever.
Is there some inquisition for proper spelling of English language that could be sent to hold an auto-da-fee in Lenton?
Brandir, thanks for the info - dwarrows it shall be!
I suspect the inquisition would be far too busy burning greengrocers for their abuse of the common apostrophe.
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