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How would you make parents-in-law possessive? Parents'-in-law, parents-in-law's, or parents-in-laws'.
And this hardly seems worth starting a new thread over, so I'll put it here.
Another site gives as their word today misoneism, meaning hatred of innovation. Would this make a hatred of Japanese soups misomisoism?
Bingley
Bingley
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addict
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How would you make parents-in-law possessive? Parents'-in-law, parents-in-law's, or parents-in-laws'
I'd use the highlighted choice above, but only if forced. I would more likely say something like, "We stayed at my wife's parents' house." And even then I'd use my wife's name if I thought the person I was talking to would know who I was talking about.
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Let's start with the singular first. "I stayed at my mother-in-law's house" sounds fine to me and looks OK too. So, from that, we come to either parents-in-law's house or parents-in-laws' house. Assuming you only have one sets of parents-in-law, the possessive would be parents-in-law's, wouldn't it?
Parents is plural. "I stayed at my parents' house." But if I am talking about only one parent, I say, "I stayed at my parent's house."
TEd
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misoneism, meaning hatred of innovation
and would a moderate degree of distate for inovation be mesomisoneism?
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Thanks TEd and Flatlander, that's what I thought but it just didn't look right. The context by the way was "She knows her parents-in-law's birthdays."
Bingley
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Still doesn't look right, Bingley. Parents-in-law shouldn't be allowed to own anything! 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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old hand
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"She knows her parents-in-law's birthdays."I'm with CK - it still doesn't look right. This sounds like a case for Prepositional Phrase!! More powerful than an apostrophe! Sexier than a dangling participle! Able to be strung together so that a sentence is right next door to incomprehensible! [coronet flourish] It's some words... it's inane! It's Prepositional Phrase!"She knows the birthdays of her parents-in-law."My work here is done.
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[coronet flourish] You've been crowned, f-babe?  I still say it should be parents-in-laws'. Bingley, since you are unsure (somebody fan me, quick), the only person whose uncited word I will take is Nicholas'.
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it ... doesn't look right.
Well, the prepositional phrase doesn't *sound right. So I guess it depends on whether you're going to say it or write it. If you really must write down what someone said, you're on your own.
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