The Chicago Manual of style says this:

"The possessive of the plurals of compound nouns may be formed in the same
way [adding the inflection to the end of the compound or phrase, which
would result in _daughters-in-law's_], but many of the resulting forms are
awkward and might profitably be replaced by the possessive prepositional
phrase with _of_:"

of the daughters-in-law.

Seems like a good plan to me.

Bill

>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?
>
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>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
>~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


William J. McCleary
3247 Bronson Hill Road
Livonia, NY 14487
716-346-6859