Spliffs or splives??

Question

i was having a debate with a friend of mine. do the english rules apply to slang terms. i was thinking that the 'f  turns to the plural 'ves as in the cas of wolves, dwarves and lives. she on the other hand debated that the rules of english didnt apply if the word wasnt in the dictionary. i was wodering if any one can clarify this. thank you very much

Mister Micawber · Accepted Answer

You should presume that any new word forms plurals and verb forms regularly.

Cool Breeze · Answer

Phonetic rules usually apply universally regardless of the language in question. For example, it's easier to pronounce the m sound before a p, b and m sound and therefore we have words like impossible, imbibe, and impolite instead of inpossible, inbibe and inpossible even though the original Latin prefix is in, not im. For the same reason, the Finnish language has kumpi, not kunpi and Swedish has immigrera, not inmigrera (to immigrate).

The f sound is unvoiced and thus no phonetic "law" requires voiced sounds [vz] after it since there is only a short vowel sound before it. Vera Lynn sang: "There'll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover." She didn't sing: "There'll be bluebirds over the white clifves of Dover."

But: wife > wives because there is a diphthong before the f. And wolf > wolves because there are two voiced sounds and [l ] before the f.

Sometimes there is fluctuation: hoof > hooves / hoofs.

CB

Spliffs or splives??

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