Johanna,

I don't find "brothers'-in-law" so terrible, but I am hard pressed to think
of many uses for it. When (or better, how often) is it likely to come up?

Paul

Paul E. Doniger
The Gilbert School

----- Original Message -----
From: Johanna Rubba <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 25, 2000 10:51 AM
Subject: doozie question


> 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
> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>