Punctuation Police rquired please

[Sporting Bear]

Which of these is correct ?

Careful now there's a plural of a collective plural relating to a collective plural (I think, if there's such a thing as a collective plural)

In excess of £500,000 donated to
Childrens Charities since 1989

or

In excess of £500,000 donated to
Children's Charities since 1989

To give this context, this is the letterhead slogan for the Sporting Bears Motor Club and not a sentence, the appearance and form are as important as correct construction

Edited by Sporting Bear on Tuesday 20th March 08:47

[UncleDave]

1..

I Hope.

[littlegreenfairy]

I'd go for 1 but my excuse is that I'm dyslexic.

[petclub]

1 sounds best to me.

[Sporting Bear]

UncleDave said:

1..

I Hope.

Thanks for your vote

(and your help in other matters, Uncle, )

Well that's the one we use, it was originally researched by an engineer, but now it is in dispute (again)

[Sporting Bear]

Sorry my computer locked up there

Thank you, more votes required please

[Major Bloodnok]

"Charities for children". Sorted.

[JoolzB]

I'd go for "children's charities" meself.

[tank slapper]

I'm going to go against the consensus I'm afraid and go for the second option. The reasoning being that Children's is possesive - the word itself is plural so not Childrens'.

[UKBob]

When would an apostrophe be here, like this:

childrens'

[Major Bloodnok]

To clarify: there's no such word as "childrens". The plural of "child" is "children", and the only form of the the word that does end in "s" is the possessive - "children's".

[Size Nine Elm]

I would go for 2, based on the fount of all definitive knowledge, Wikipedia...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrop

[momentofmadness]

JoolzB said:

I'd go for "children's charities" meself.

My choice too, as the charities belong to the children.

Paul, shud have paid more attention at skool

[JoolzB]

UKBob said:

When would an apostrophe be here, like this:

childrens'

If a plural of a noun ends with an "s". The plural of child is children so it don't have one.

[bengoodwin]

JoolzB said:

UKBob said:

When would an apostrophe be here, like this:

childrens'

If a plural of a noun ends with an "s". The plural of child is children so it don't have one.

But should be written as s's just laziness from years before means most don't bother anymore.

[anonymous-user]

UKBob said:

When would an apostrophe be here, like this:

childrens'

For example if you were writing about a client's account (which I did for 6 months) it would be like this:

Client's name: Mr Smith

When there is more than one client, but the account belongs to both of them it is like this.

Clients' names: Mr & Mrs Smith

Hope this helps.

Edited by anonymous-user on Monday 19th March 19:26

[hunt_the_fox]

bengoodwin said:

JoolzB said:

UKBob said:

When would an apostrophe be here, like this:

childrens'

If a plural of a noun ends with an "s". The plural of child is children so it don't have one.

But should be written as s's just laziness from years before means most don't bother anymore.

I think that historically only applies to person and place names eg-

St James's Park

[Sporting Bear]

Major Bloodnok said:

"Charities for children". Sorted.

Yes that would have been good but it doesn't have the same ring to it

No real consensus yet

Any more contributions ?

[hugoagogo]

2nd one definitely

as said "childrens" isn't a word

[castex]

Children's charities. There's your consensus. There's no alternative.