Had to look this up cause that's cool - Tolkein worked in etymology of words in the range of Waggle-Warlock, so arguably not much work with the front of the alphabet.
Also - dwarfopodes.
this post was submitted on 08 Apr 2025
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He should have referred them to the definition of “Wanker” then.
dwari.
your move.
"Dwarfs" is for humans with dwarfism, "dwarves" is for the fantasy race.
That might be the trend now, but the common plural before Tolkien was "dwarfs" for the mythical creature.
Yes, but thanks to him, it now isn't.
I can only speak for myself, but if I were a person with dwarfism, I think I would insist on "dwarves". Lean really hard into the fantasy angle.
What about celestial bodies? Is it red dwarfs or red dwarves?
Red dwarfs.
Dwarrows
Yeah I recall reading that he later said he wished he had gone with dwarrow since it's an older root word.
He could have just written a story about how a wizard changed the word.
Discworld explanation for anything unexplainable: 'Wizard did it"
Ooh, crimes against the hobbit are even nore heinous though!
Tolkien worked on part of the dictionary. I think he was assigned the letter W, so dwarf would not have been in his range. But he would not have defined the plural as dwarves anyway. He deliberately chose it differently for his fantasy creatures. Great flex, I wonder what the immediate reaction of the publisher was to that quote.
In the preface of my edition of the Hobbit, there is an indirect reference made to this where Christopher Tolkien mentioned how the correct spelling is dwarfs and not dwarves.
Nice to know where it came from!