This week I have a quick and duty tip about the difference between hoves and hoves.

In a meaty middle about phrases that include colors like tickled pink and yellow journalism.

Here's a question for you.

When you hear reindeer clattering on your roof, are you hearing their hoves, H-O-O-F-S, or

their hoves, H-O-O-V-E-S?

Nouns that take an S or E-S to become plural are called regular nouns.

And nouns that become plural some other way are called irregular nouns.

So hoves is a regular plural, and hoves is an irregular plural.

Usually, if a spelling changes, it's in the direction of the word becoming regular.

For example, the plural of the word brother used to be irregular, brethren.

But now it's usually regular, simply brothers.

That's the common way language change happens.

It goes from irregular to regular.

Language gets simpler over time.

But hoof is a rubble.

It's a rare example of a word that's gone the other way, from being regular to being irregular.

Hoves used to be more common, but now hoves, the irregular, V-E-S plural, H-O-O-V-E-S,

hoves is winning.

Scarf is the same way.

Scarf used to be more common, but now you're more likely to see the plural spelled

scarves with that V-E-S spelling again.

And these are both cases where the word currently has two acceptable plurals.

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