April Fools Day.. where does the apostrophe go?

[BarryRiley]

I tend to avoid the use of an apostrophe rather than be in error.

However my teacher gave us two questions.

 

1 Which of the following are correct?

a " One of the professors wives is dead!"

b " One of the professor's wives is dead!"

c " One of the professors' wives is dead!"

 

Are we talking about one professor with multiple wives, or multiple professors with multiple wives?

[BarryRiley]

The reason that I will often avoid using the apostrophe is because sometimes conventional use confounds the rules as in:

 

I remember reading somewhere that James' is wrong and just because a name ends with an 'S' this 'S' doesn't act as a substitute for that representing possession.

[eurovision]

This is getting very interesting.

[Karis]

Are we talking about one professor with multiple wives, or multiple professors with multiple wives?

 

It can only be C (unless the professor is into polygamy)!

[Jaywalker51]

I think you are all wrong. I am a bit of a grammar pedant and in this case an apostrophe is not required because the full traditional title of the day is "all fools day",

 

I agree with this but as April Fools' Day is a colloquialism I still think the apostrophe should be after the s. I'm open to being told otherwise though.

 

Also it is worth remembering that some of these festivals go back to a time when english didn't have the possessive apostrophe followed by S. You only have to go back 300 or 400 years when english had less tenses and was less complex and confused than what we see today.

 

As a "grammar pedant" you might like to look at this sentence again (my bold)