A grammar question
Many of you know I can be a bit of a grammar nazi, especially about apostrophes. This morning however I have a bit of a quandry about plural possesives. Most of the time the apostrophe will go after the 's' as in "The dogs' bones" where there are multiple dogs with multiple bones. An exception would be where there is a seperate word for the plural so you would say "The children's toys" as children is already a plural word.
What do you do where the same word is used for both singular and plural e.g. "sheep" I just tried having "sheeps'" in an email and spell check didn't like it (not that that means much, if just got me thinking). If you have one sheep and its dinner you would write "The sheep's dinner". But what about if there are two sheep? Is it "the sheeps' dinner" or is spell check really right and it can only ever be "sheep's". If so, how do you know if there are more than one sheep?
What do you do where the same word is used for both singular and plural e.g. "sheep" I just tried having "sheeps'" in an email and spell check didn't like it (not that that means much, if just got me thinking). If you have one sheep and its dinner you would write "The sheep's dinner". But what about if there are two sheep? Is it "the sheeps' dinner" or is spell check really right and it can only ever be "sheep's". If so, how do you know if there are more than one sheep?