weird plural possessives

[deird1]

Okay. This has stumped me.

We have:
- one Surgeon General
- two Surgeons General
- one cup of tea
- two cups of tea
- The Surgeon General's cup of tea.
- The Surgeon General's cups of tea.


...when you have multiple Surgeons General, how do you do the possessive?

Is it:
- The Surgeons' General cups of tea?
- The Surgeons General's cups of tea?
- The Surgeons' Generals cups of tea?
...or what?

Comments

[megpie71]

I'll add another vote for the second. I can even explain why:

Firstly, rules of possessives don't alter just because you're multiplying the numbers. In the singular, the possessive is attached to the entire title. In the plural it would be as well.

Secondly, "Surgeon General" is one of those weird ones English picked up out of French (Anglo-Norman French, according to my copy of the Concise OED) which means the part which is pluralised is always the noun (surgeon), rather than the attached adjective ("General"). Another term which works in the same way is "court martial", which is pluralised to "courts martial" ("court" is the noun, "martial" is an adjective describing which type of court it is). These throw off even native English speakers, because they fall outside the standard rule of "pluralise by putting an 's' at the end of the term".

Of course, given the term "Surgeon General" is intended to be a designation for the head of a public health service or military medical service, there really shouldn't be more than about one of them in the first place - otherwise there's too much potential for countermanding and contradicting instructions.

One good method of cutting the entire Gordian knot would be to ensure the Surgeon General is a practising Mormon, because then they wouldn't be willing to drink either tea or coffee in the first place.

[fenchurch]

I'm a bit late seeing this, so I'll just add "What Megpie71 said!" Even broken down the way I was going to!