Mens' or Men's?

Jody asks:
I am in an argument with a sign maker at the high school I'm building. I say it should be Men's Locker Room. He said it's Mens' because Men is plural. Same with Women's Locker Room versus Womens'. Who is correct?

You are, and here's why:

In very old English, we formed plurals not with "s" but with "en": one brother, two brethren; one man, two men; one woman, two women; one child, two children; one chick, two chicken (no kidding!).

Some of those words have stayed in the language. They're plurals, but when we form a possessive of them, we treat them as singular:
Men's wear
Women's locker room
Children's education

It would be especially embarrassing in a school to have the apostrophe in the wrong place, so stick to your guns on this one!

Comments

[Carolyn J.]

Thank you for posting this. I was just wondering about this question myself!

[twitter.com/myhealth]

Great - I just had a discussion with my partner and I guess I won! I was on the men's side ;) !

[me.yahoo.com/a/mWGy7vMr2oJAQz6SN2H3U7PO8Z0-]

Thank you so much! Finally this makes sense to me. What about lady's vs. ladies'? Did they use to add "ies" to everything too. Smile, smilies? Thx!

[Maria Davidson]

You have that lady's purse. We are going to the ladies meeting at church. They are two different things. Ladies, meaning a lot of women and lady's, meaning possessive..

[Crof]

Hi, Maria--

Yes, "ladies" is the plural of "lady," but when something belongs to a lot of ladies, we need to add an apostrophe to show possession: "We are going to the ladies' meeting at church." That is, the meeting OF the ladies at church.

And for the commenter just before you: When a noun ends with a consonant + y, like lady or army or dynasty, we change it to ies when we make it a plural: ladies, armies, dynasties.

We don't do it when the noun ends with a vowel + y, like monkey or tray: monkeys, trays.

But if it's a proper noun ending in a consonant + y, like Murphy or Kennedy, we just add s: The Murphys are coming to dinner. The Kennedys are one of the great American political dynasties.

[Vernon Bird]

Okay, somebody tell my spell check.

[Charlie Parkinson]

I'm struggling with the 'men's shirts'.

What if it was the men's shirts' buttons were coming off.

Is it mens' or can 'men' never have an s apostrophe after it because it's already a plural noun.

Thank you!

[Rahuldsouza]

"What if it was the men's shirts' buttons were coming off."

Consider rephrasing: The buttons on the men's shirts were unraveling.

This avoids any confusion regarding two continuous possessives and helps you avoid a hanging preposition.

[Dave Manser]

I guess the same logic would apply for "Gent's Gifts", ie. the apostrophe between the "t" and the "s" of "Gents". Thanks for the help, this one had me stuck!

[Pricey Pearl]

1.) It should be Men's Locker Room.
2.) It should be Mens' Locker Room.

(singular word)'s : be used in singular meaning
(plural word)' : be used in plural meaning

...If you use "men" , it show "plural".

**[Thus,the first sentence is wrong and the second sentences is wrong too because "men" already show "plural", so you don't put "s"after the word "men"]**

>>> *** It should be Men' Locker Room. ***

......................(is correct sentence)..................

[Scott Seigel]

Pricey Pearl,
I used to teach English as a foreign language professionally (in Korea and Germany). Your comment sounds like one a foreign speaker might make. That's because you apparently can't internally hear what's right. Plural possessives are hard for native English speakers, so don't feel bad; however, there is no prohibition with appending an 's to a plural word in order to indicate possession.

[Thebollemonster]

Wouldn't 'Mens Room' without the apostrophe also be correct as rather than a room belonging to men, men is acting as an attributive noun? You rarely see Men's Room on a sign. Happy to be proven wrong, but I would not put an apostrophe here.