this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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Don't be mean. I promise to do my best to judge that fairly.

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groof (sh.itjust.works)
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[–] teft@piefed.world 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

f is the voiceless labiodental fricative and v is the voiced labiodental fricative.

Basically for roofs your vocal cords don't vibrate on the final f sound. For rooves your vocal cords vibrate on the final v sound.

[–] rumschlumpel@feddit.org 2 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

I know the difference between f and v, the question is whether it makes a difference in this specific case and if yes, whether most native English speakers actually know that. I'm not a native English speaker and words that end in -ooves aren't that common (when is the last time you said "grooves" or "hooves"?).

English is famously inconsistent about how written letters are pronounced, and there are a lot of accents.

[–] teft@piefed.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I am a native speaker. The pronunciation difference between those two words, even though one doesn’t actually exist, is only the vibration of vocal cords in the final sound. It’s like belief and believe.

[–] ThisIsNotHim@sopuli.xyz 1 points 2 days ago

Grooves and hooves are more common words than roofs.

I think I would notice if someone said groofs or hoofs (although that's also a word with a different meaning), but I'm really not sure I'd notice rooves vs roofs.