Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2022 June 1

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June 1

Plural posessive of Attorney General?

(And other words words of that types) "Briefs from 15 Attorneys General" becomes "15 Attorneys General's Briefs"? (or 15 Attorneys' General Briefs? or something else???)Naraht (talk) 13:17, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Has to be "attorneys' general's briefs". The other version refers to the general briefs of a bunch of generic attorneys, and I don't see any other alternatives. Clarityfiend (talk) 13:58, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Clarityfiend -- I came up with the same answer, based solely on my internal personal "Sprachgefuehl", but I'm not sure how I would analyze it. When writing it down, I don't think I'd add an apostrophe at the end of "Attorneys" (so "Attorneys general's"). In that respect, it's analogous to "women's", a possessive plural which does not have an apostrophe at the end... AnonMoos (talk) 14:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Why the second apostrophe? General is just an postpositive adjective, and adjectives don't have a possessive form (we wouldn't say *District's attorneys' briefs). Technically, it should be "attorneys' general briefs" (although I would never recommend actually using that). No such user (talk) 14:32, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

No_such_user -- The possessive suffix "floats" in English, so we have the "King of Sweden's hat" or "The girl I saw yesterday's hat" etc. AnonMoos (talk) 14:38, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

Acknowledged; but then - why the first apostrophe? I can understand "attorneys general's" but not "attorneys' general's".
For what it's worth, https://www.ag.gov.au/ spells the office as "Attorney-General's Department", in singular. That would logically extend to "attorneys-general's briefs" (with or without hyphen). No such user (talk) 14:52, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

I don't think I'd add an apostrophe there (see my reply to Clarityfiend above). AnonMoos (talk) 15:00, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

My's bad. Clarityfiend (talk) 16:44, 1 June 2022 (UTC)

This link says probably attorneys general's in American English and attorney-generals' in British English. Rmhermen (talk) 18:10, 3 June 2022 (UTC)

That link says "The British prefer attorney-generals (the Brits have long hyphenated the phrase)." and so, in the light of [1] saying otherwise, ought to be considered unreliable. Bazza (talk) 19:22, 3 June 2022 (UTC)