grammatical number - How do you make a word like "parent(s)" possessive?





What is the correct possessive for nouns ending in s?



"Please submit your and your parent(s)' federal tax returns." Is the possessive of "parent(s)'" correctly formatted in that sentence? I know the apostrophe comes before the "s" for just parent singular, and it would come after the "s" for parents plural, but what if I don't know if it is one or two parents, and therefore want to use the (s)?




Comments

Popular posts from this blog

etymology - Origin of "s--t eating grin"

etymology - Since when has "a hot minute" meant a long time?

etymology - Why "silver-tongued" for someone who is convincing?

usage - "there doesn't seem" vs. "there don't seem"

etymology - Origin of "queer as a clockwork orange"

First floor vs ground floor, usage origin

meaning - What is meant by "don't piss on my boots and tell me it's raining"?