The plural of “attorney” is “attorneys.” You may have in mind the rule that English nouns ending in “-y” change the “y” to “i” before adding “es” to make the plural form, but this rule applies only when the sound/letter preceding the final “-y” is a consonant, e.g., “city/cities” and “dummy/dummies.”
May 01, 2013 · In American English, attorneys general is the correct plural form. The British prefer attorney-generals (the Brits have long hyphenated the phrase).
Dec 01, 2011 · Plural possessive form of attorney-at-law. You form the PLURAL of attorney-at-law by adding -s to the main noun (attorney), hence forming "attorneys-at-law".
Answer (1 of 5): There isn't really a good answer. The English possessive does not adapt well to noun phrases in general. Even setting aside the somewhat dubious importation of the plural "attorneys general" from the French, describing the bill …
Although inelegant, attorney fees is becoming more common — presumably to avoid making a decision on the apostrophe altogether. The one variant to avoid at all costs is *attorneys fees, which is a possessive form with the apostrophe wrongly omitted.
The plural of "attorney" is "attorneys." You may have in mind the rule that English nouns ending in "-y" change the "y" to "i" before adding "es" to make the plural form, but this rule applies only when the sound/letter preceding the final "-y" is a consonant, e.g., "city/cities" and "dummy/dummies." The "e" in " ...Sep 14, 2016
Plural Possessives: Most plural nouns are made possessive by adding only an apostrophe onto the word In other words, if the plural form of the noun ends in –s, then the plural possessive form will only use an apostrophe.
Why is it “Attorneys General” (plural) but not “Attorney's General” (singular possessive)? With “Attorney General,” general modifies the noun attorney. Thus, when there is more than one Attorney General, you would write “Attorneys General.” This makes sense. You make the noun plural by adding an “s” to it.Feb 18, 2013
attorney Definitions and Synonyms singularattorneypluralattorneys
The correct plural spelling of “attorney” is “attorneys.” Because of the vowel before the final letter, this word doesn't follow the rule of “-y” words turning to “-ies” when pluralized.Nov 17, 2020
Singular possessive nouns are easy. If a person, place or thing owns something all you have to do is add an 's. ... Plural possessive nouns show ownership when there is more than one of a noun. To show ownership where there is more than one noun you can simply add an s' to the end of a word.Jul 25, 2018
Here are examples of plural possessive nouns:Cattle's pasture.Geese's eggs.Women's clothes.Children's toys.Mice's traps.People's ideas.Feet's toenails.Nuclei's form.More items...
The plural form of two is twos.
The plural form of district attorney is district attorneys.
Applying these rules to attorney general, we see that the plural is attorneys general, the singular possessive is attorney general's, and the plural possessive is attorneys general's.
Originally Answered: Why is "Attorneys General" the plural instead of "Attorney Generals"? Because “attorney” is the noun and “general” is the adjective. It's common for legal phrases in English to use noun-adjective order instead of adjective-noun order.
Now we know the plural form of the attorney and the rule behind it. You will have to follow this grammar rule while changing the form of attorneys. You can follow a simple rule and add s to the y to make it plural. It cannot be attornies since there is a vowel before y. You will have to check it since iwriter does not format.
As stated above, the plural form of attorney is attorneys. Now you should not have any confusion between attornies or attorneys. If you cannot remember the grammar rule, you can simply add s to y. You might be thinking about how to make the plural of the attorney general.
When it comes to the US, these two words are separated. They do not connect these words with a hyphen. There will be two separate words, attorney and general. In this condition, you can consider the grammar rule explained above. You can write the plural form as attorneys general.
In US English, there will be two separate words and will be treated as a compound noun. Also, s will be added to the first word to make it plural, and the second word (adjective) will not change the form.
Update: After the podcast aired, we got an interesting follow-up question: What is the plural of deputy attorney general ?
Mignon Fogarty is the founder of Quick and Dirty Tips and the author of seven books on language, including the New York Times bestseller " Grammar Girl's Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing ." She is an inductee in the Podcasting Hall of Fame, and the show is a five-time winner of Best Education Podcast in the Podcast Awards.
To show possession with regular plural nouns that end with "s," simply add an apostrophe at the end.
With irregular plural nouns that do not end with "s," add an apostrophe and "s." Examples are:
With compound words, if the plural form ends with "s," add only an apostrophe. Examples are:
These examples help to illustrate many different types of plural possessive nouns. For more examples, check out Examples of Possessive Nouns. Need some practice? YourDictionary also has worksheets to use to practice with plural nouns and possessive nouns.