Learn English – Plural form of “brother-in-law” when a possessive case is involved

apostropheplural-formspossessives

1) My brother's friend's opinions

2) My brothers' friend's opinions

I hope "1" and "2" are pretty clear and correct.

Now, let us suppose that the brother in "1" is a brother-in-law and that all the brothers in "2" are brothers-in-law.

Question is: How do we rewrite "1" and "2" in these cases?

Following the J.R.'s suggestion, I have done some preliminary researches and I found that when in-laws become possessive brothers-in-law is written brother-in-law's. So, I would conclude that we should rewrite "1" and "2" in the same way, as follow.

i) My brother-in-law's friend's opinions.

ii) My brother-in-law's friend's opinions.

But, if it is so, how can we distinguish the two different cases?

Best Answer

So let's start with the singular 'brother-in-law', which is perfectly clear. If you have a single brother-in-law and he possesses something, this is written as:

My brother-in-law's cooking skills are excellent.

If you have more than one brother-in-law (no possession) you would write:

My brothers-in-law are all brunettes.

This is because when pluralizing a compound noun, we always add the 's' to the most 'important' word. The fact that they are brothers is most important, so it gets the 's'. This is the same for "mothers-in-law", "fathers-in-law", etc.

If you have more than one brother-in-law and they all own something:

My brothers-in-law's restaurant is the best in town!

Confirmation of this final construction can be found at grammarbook.com:

Rule 7

If the compound noun is plural, form the plural first and then use the apostrophe.

Example: my two brothers-in-law's hats

Related Topic