Today I Learned …

A draft of The Fellowship of the Ring was rejected by J.R.R. Tolkien’s editor, who cited the reason that the plural of “dwarf” was dwarfs, not dwarves, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. “Dwarves” was a word that didn’t exist. Tolkien’s response? “I wrote the Oxford English Dictionary. Don’t correct me.” (He was, indeed, the editor of the OED.) Tolkien also gave us the words elven and elvish, rather than the previous “elfin”.