Not because I dont know the rules. I remember very well being taught them in primary school, aged either 8 or 9. The teacher was called Mr Price.
The examples used were The boys heads & The boys books.
I dont suppose I used these precise terms to myself at the time, but I decided then & there that if I ever wanted to convey the news that here was a boy with more than one head, I WOULD NOT DO IT WITH AN APOSTROPHE .
I confess to feeling some confusion over the plural boys books. I now realise that this is because of indeterminacy, in the mathematical sense. How to distinguish between the following?
- Each boy has exactly one book
- Each boy has one or more books
- Each boy has more than one book
- library, boys, for the use of
If you have to deploy something other than an apostrophe to make such distinctions, why bother at all?
