In the context of we having 2 Teams: team 1, and team 2. I want to refer to the members of all the teams we have. Should I say "Teams members" or do I still have to use the singular of "team", like "Team members"?
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1Compound nouns in English are pluralised by adding "s" to the last word so "team member"->"team members". If that's what you're asking. There are a lot of questions on the subject but I can't immediately find an exact duplicate (there are a lot about pluralising multi-word product names, and about "security trader" vs "securities trader", which I don't think is quite the same question). If you had more than one door key, you wouldn't say "doors keys", would you?– Stuart FCommented Aug 30, 2023 at 8:28
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1We say "orange groves" not "oranges groves" even if each grove has more than one orange in it.– GEdgarCommented Aug 30, 2023 at 10:25
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1If you want to refer to all the employees (or whatever they are) together, and it doesn't matter who belongs to which team, why use the phrase team(s) members at all? Why not just say employees?– jsw29Commented Sep 16, 2023 at 15:54
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A synthetic example, just to answer your question: Imagine a game. "East teams members begin the game with red cards, but West teams members begin the game with green cards. There are 8 teams, 4 East teams and 4 West teams." You suggest "East players begin the game with red cards, but West players begin the game with green cards ...". Nice, there are pros and cons. For an instruction manual, maybe you want to make sure there is not confussion at all, and be the most precise possible.– jgomo3Commented Sep 17, 2023 at 0:31
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1 Answer
As the comments to your question indicate, team members is used regardless of the number of teams.
It is ambiguous compared to other languages that would pluralize team in that case. If you need to specify that the members don't belong to the same team, you might say one of the following :
- the teams' members
- the members of the teams.
The moves to keep the teams’ members safe come attached with multiple costs to the franchises. Washington Post, Feb 2020
