grammatical number - What is the possessive form of a singular noun ending with a plural s?


I would tend to treat a company name as singular and would therefore write the possessive form with 's. Now, my company refers to its international operations by placing the country name behind the company name; think: "Coca Cola USA" or "Coca Cola Germany". In these examples I would write, in similar fashion, "Coca Cola Germany's workers are happy". Unfortunately, we also operate in a number of countries that have plural names; think: Netherlands and Cayman Islands. What is the possessive form in these cases? Is it "Coca Cola Netherlands' workers are happy" or "Coca Cola Netherlands's workers are happy"? I nudge towards the latter being grammatically correct, however reckon the former to be more generally accepted — or easier on the eye. I'm not a native English speaker, so I am not always entirely capable of assessing what is "accepted" or "sounds right".




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