Grammar question

If the voices belonged to a unit of men and women, then it should be "men and women's voices." (Think "Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream.") If the voices belong to individual men and women, it's "men's and women's voices." Of course, you could always re-cast the sentence as, "She heard the voices of men and women," or simply, "She heard many voices" without getting into the gender at all.

You're welcome!

I can't think of a context in which men and women would form the kind of unit that justifies dropping the first apostrophe. The voices come separately from men and from women. So it's "men's and women's voices."

I personally vote for the idea of dropping the separate genders altogether.

I wish when people have what they think of as a "grammar" question, they'd give us the sentence in context, with at least the sentences that precede and follow it.

For intance, is it important that the voices are male and female? What's the information that's most important for the reader? Would "adult" or "people" work just as well? I can't tell the context.

More often than not, when people have a grammar question, it's really part of a larger issue than grammar--possibly the entire sentence would be better if it were recast; possibly the writer is being sidetracked by a grammar issue that's really a sign post of something else that's happening in the prose.

Medievalist said:

I wish when people have what they think of as a "grammar" question, they'd give us the sentence in context, with at least the sentences that precede and follow it.

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Well, yes, that would help. Maybe people think grammar questions concern isolated itty-bitty units because that's the way English teachers dealt with them.

black winged fighter said:

*grins* I did actually end up changing the entire sentence.
The orginal was:
"She thrust her way to the other side of the street, however, when she realised that pursuit could not be far behind.
Surprised people parted before her, and she heard men's and women's gasps as darted past in leggings and breast band. She grinned."

I was trying to differentiate between the gasps of men and women because in this culture women are heavily suppressed. In my mind's ear, the two genders' gasps would be different in context. I decided to let the issue drop.

The new version:
"She thrust her way to the other side of the street, however, when she realised that pursuit could not be far behind.
Surprised people parted before her, and she heard men and women gasp as darted past in leggings and breast band. She grinned."

Sorry about not including more info. I'll refrain from blaming HS teachers, though. I owe them more than that.

Thanks.

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The rule for this is pretty simple. It's really a matter of intent. If you want to show individuality,you use "men's and women's." If you want to show something as a collective, be it a material obejct or a gasp, you use "men and women's."

This is why it's "Ben and Jerry's." They both own the same thing. It's a collective. We also have a club here in town that is a "men and women's club." Aagain, it's a collective.

So if you're trying to portray the gasps as individual things where men and women are different, you use "men's and women's." If you want to show the gasps as a colective of the crowd, you would use "men and women's."

In the first instance, you're essentially saying "men and women gasped, and the did it differently, as individuals." In the second, you're saying the crowd gasped as a collective, and merely pointing out that the crowd is made up of both men and women.

The problem is that even when "men's and women's" is allowed, it is, at best, clumsy, and there's always a better way of saying what you mean. It's ugly usage, and violates the old style rule of avoiding apostrophes and pronouns whenever possible.

Not that it matters, but my problem with both versions is the use of six pronouns in a very short space. Throw in two apostophes, and that's a bunch.