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Possible Duplicate:
User’s Guide vs Users’ Guide

I am sorry if this is really obvious but I can't work out from Wikipedia if it's right to use one here. My English is terrible but I try:

Christmas parties are the cornerstone of most (companies | company's | companie's) cultures.

Could someone please set me straight? Thank you very much.

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You can do this two ways:

A. Christmas parties are the cornerstone of most company cultures.

In this case, company functions as an adjective and doesn't take an apostrophe. It doesn't matter whether you mean one or, as in this sentence, many companies because English adjectives don't take number.

B. Christmas parties are the cornerstone of most companies' cultures.

Companies is the plural form of the noun company. It takes number. The possessive apostrophe is added after the plural morpheme (/-es/).

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  • @RegDwighт♦: Thank you for the edit. I shouldn't use those abbreviations in answers. I have to in comments because I usually write too much. I frequently forget myself that way.
    – user21497
    Oct 10, 2012 at 10:32

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