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An artist wrote "Captains Carter and Marvel" to refer to both Captain Carter and Captain Marvel together.

Is it okay to use the title only once and make it plural when there are multiple people with that title mentioned in the sentence? Can I see some other examples?

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    Nothing wrong with it.
    – Hot Licks
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 2:21
  • 2
    For example: Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs
    – Jim
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 4:45
  • I don't remember Captain Marvel appearing in Stargate.
    – Andrew Leach ♦
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 7:50
  • Captain Marvel was 1950s and Captain Carter was 1900s. They'd look good together, though.
    – John Lawler
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 13:39

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I just chose two generic names and searched for Captains Smith and Jones. Plenty of examples.

This is a perfectly normal construction, and can be extended to Messrs (pronounced messers, plural of Mister), Misses, Sisters, Brothers, Sergeants, Presidents... Where there is a title, it can be pluralised.

Mrs is difficult. While one might mention unmarried sisters as "The Misses Bulstrode" (or whatever), Mrs doesn't lend itself to pluralisation.

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  • I've seen "the Mrs." attempted, in bad fiction, but nobody talks like that anymore.
    – John Lawler
    Commented May 17, 2022 at 13:40
  • I thought the plural of Mrs was Mmes. This question has newspaper citations that use it in its spelled-out form.
    – tchrist ♦
    Commented May 18, 2022 at 3:11

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