Learn English – People’s belongings or peoples’ belongings?

grammatical-numberpossessives

I refuse to look after other people's belongings.

I refuse to look after other peoples' belongings.

Which is correct?

We're talking about the belongings that potentially belong individually to every other person.

Not a dupe of 'people' vs 'peoples' as this is talking about the possessive of 'peoples'.

Best Answer

People as a plural of person is a mass noun, and we don;t use a plural -s. So when forming a possessive, we only add the 's:

I refuse to look after other people's belongings.

However, people can also be countable, when we refer to a(n ethic) group of persons: the Belgian people, the British people. Although a bit contrived, you could be referring to belongings that are the property of such groups.

For example:

The artwork from the Acropolis belong to the Greek people. Some of them are now in the British museum, but I don't see why they should look after other peoples' belongings.

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