It seems that when I was in elementary school the proper way to spell the plural of roof was rooves. I guess it was changed to roofs in the last several decades. If you look at the words hoof, leaf, shelf, elf and other words ending in “f,” the plurals end in “ves” instead of “f.” The word wharf is optional. English is a living language.
I was an English major at Baylor. I took a course in etymolog…