Sunday, September 1, 2013

grammatical number - 'Employee Profiles' or 'Employees Profiles' or 'Employees' Profiles'?




I had a spat with a coworker. We are compiling a software feature list.
One of the entries was the "Employee Profile". However, we wanted to write it down in plural. So, which one should it be?





1 - Employee Profiles
2 - Employees Profiles
3 - Employees' Profiles




Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the following:




1 - Correct
2 - Incorrect
3 - Works, too




Answer



1 and 3 in this instance would be correct.



1) 'Employee Profile' is a complete noun phrase with 'employee' - in this instance - not a noun in its own right but a 'noun adjunct'. It is playing the part of a modifier for the subject noun 'Profile' and it is only this word that would take the plural.



3) Also correct but for a different reason. Here they are two separate nouns. 'Employee' in this instance is taking a possessive which splits the complete noun phrase seen in choice 1. So for proper agreement both would need to be conjugated to the plural.


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