“Whence hapless Monsieur much complains at Paris
    Of wrongs from Duchesses and Lady Maries."_—­Dunciad_, B. ii, L 135.

OBS. 18.—­The following eleven nouns in f, change the f into v and assume es for the plural:  sheaf, sheaves; leaf, leaves; loaf, loaves; leaf, beeves; thief, thieves; calf, calves; half, halves; elf, elves; shelf, shelves; self, selves; wolf, wolves.  Three others in fe are similar:  life, lives; knife, knives; wife, wives. These are specific exceptions to the general rule for plurals, and not a series of examples coming under a particular rule; for, contrary to the instructions of nearly all our grammarians, there are more than twice as many words of the same endings, which take s only:  as, chiefs, kerchiefs, handkerchiefs, mischiefs, beliefs, misbeliefs, reliefs, bassreliefs, briefs, feifs, griefs, clefs, semibrefs, oafs, waifs, coifs, gulfs, hoofs, roofs, proofs, reproofs, woofs, califs, turfs, scarfs, dwarfs, wharfs, fifes, strifes, safes. The plural of wharf is sometimes written wharves; but perhaps as frequently, and, if so, more accurately, wharfs.  Examples and authorities:  “Wharf, wharfs.”—­Brightland’s Gram., p. 80; Ward’s, 24; Goar’s, 26; Lennie’s, 7; Bucke’s, 39.  “There were not in London so many wharfs, or keys, for the landing of merchants’ goods.”—­CHILD:  in Johnson’s Dict. “The wharfs of Boston are also worthy of notice.”—­Balbi’s Geog., p. 37.  “Between banks thickly clad with dwelling-houses, manufactories, and wharfs."_—­London Morn.  Chronicle_, 1833.  Nouns in ff take s only; as, skiffs, stuffs, gaffs.  But the plural of staff has hitherto been generally written staves; a puzzling and useless anomaly, both in form and sound:  for all the compounds of staff are regular; as, distaffs, whipstaffs, tipstaffs, flagstaffs, quarterstaffs; and staves is the regular plural of stave, a word now in very common use with a different meaning, as every cooper and every musician knows. Staffs is now sometimes used; as, “I saw the husbandmen bending over their staffs.”—­Lord Carnarvon.  “With their staffs in their hands for very age.”—­Hope of Israel, p. 16.  “To distinguish between the two staffs.”—­Comstock’s Elocution, p. 43.  In one instance, I observe, a very excellent scholar has written selfs for selves, but the latter is the established plural of self: 

   “Self-love would cease, or be dilated, when
    We should behold as many selfs as men."_—­Waller’s Poems_, p. 55.