Others vs Other's

I never understood this, even after looking it up.

Suppose there are two women.

"They were eating each other(')s pussies."

Which "other" is correct?

thanks

heyall

The possessive in this case, I think, but I've had the same problem determining such things and also haven't found help in figuring it out.

https://jakubmarian.com/each-others-vs-each-others-in-english/

In the case of “each other”, “other” is in the singular because it follows “each”—you wouldn’t say “each teachers” instead of “each teacher”, would you… By adding the possessive ’s, we get the correct form each other’s.

Hard_Rom said:

https://jakubmarian.com/each-others-vs-each-others-in-english/

In the case of “each other”, “other” is in the singular because it follows “each”—you wouldn’t say “each teachers” instead of “each teacher”, would you… By adding the possessive ’s, we get the correct form each other’s.

Click to expand...

Okay...so how about this one: a group of (others) showing plural possessive?
"the others opinions were varied"
Would that be other's or others', or neither?
Thanks!

I'd render it. "others' opinions." You could also go with "the opinions of others."

HeyAll said:

Suppose there are two women.

"They were eating each other(')s pussies."

Click to expand...

holliday1960 said:

Okay...so how about this one: a group of (others) showing plural possessive?
"the others opinions were varied"
Would that be other's or others', or neither?

Click to expand...

It helps to think about whether that noun would still end in 's' if you were using it in a non-possessive form.

For example, if I write about two women "they were kissing each other", there's no 's' at the end. So, if I write about them "eating each other(')s pussies", it's clear that the 's' has been added to indicate possessive. So it gets the apostrophe: "eating each other's pussies".

But if I write about a group "I listened to the opinions of the others", there's already an 's' there, because it's plural. So if I'm using that as a possessive, it follows the normal rules for possessive plurals; in this case that's "the others' opinions".

In your example (two women):

Other's.

(Singular possessive. "Each" makes it singular.)

But if 5 women were all looking at one anothers' pussies, it would be

Anothers'

(Apostrophe after the s for plural possessive.)

haulover said:

In your example (two women):

Other's.

(Singular possessive. "Each" makes it singular.)

But if 5 women were all looking at one anothers' pussies, it would be

Anothers'

(Apostrophe after the s for plural possessive.)

Click to expand...

Not quite.

If you have a plural word that already ends in s, then yes, it converts to a possessive by adding an apostrophe after the s. But if you have a plural that doesn't end in s, then the possessive is formed by adding a 's just like for singulars.

So from "ladies" we get "the ladies' room", but from "men" we get "the men's room", not "mens' room."

I'm not sure whether "one another" actually counts as a plural per se (compare to "the crowd" - although it refers to several people, it's a singular noun). But either way, it doesn't end with an s - you wouldn't write "the women were talking to one anothers" - so when forming the possessive we add 's.

http://www.thepunctuationguide.com/apostrophe.html
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/each-other-one-another