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Date: | Wed, 25 Oct 2000 09:51:22 -0800 |
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One of my students stumped me in class yesterday. We were discussing
apostrophe use, and she asked how one would punctuate the possessive
plural of 'brother-in-law', assuming 'brother' carries the plural marker.
Brothers'-in-law looks terrible to me, but
brothers-in-law's looks no better.
I think this example is a good argument for shifting the plural to
'brother-in-laws' (I'm kidding, actually, 'brother-in-laws' sounds wrong
to me).
What do you all think?
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Johanna Rubba Assistant Professor, Linguistics
English Department, California Polytechnic State University
One Grand Avenue • San Luis Obispo, CA 93407
Tel. (805)-756-2184 • Fax: (805)-756-6374 • Dept. Phone. 756-259
• E-mail: [log in to unmask] • Home page: http://www.cla.calpoly.edu/~jrubba
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