How do you make the possessive of a possessive? Where do you put the apostrophe(s)?
Thursday's Wall Street Journal used a possessive as a name:
In the wake of last year's bankruptcy filing by poultry giant Pilgrim's Pride Corp., hundreds of farmers suddenly find themselves unable to make mortgage payments on their pricey chicken coops. Today's chicken houses can be longer than a football field and cost more than $200,000. To maximize profits, many farmers own at least four, meaning high-six-figure mortgages are common. To cut costs, Pilgrim's has terminated contracts with at least 300 farms. Under these contracts, farmers receive a set price per pound for raising chicks supplied by Pilgrim's until they are ready for slaughter. For the farmers who have been cut loose, no contract means no chicks, which means no revenue -- and no money to pay off the coop mortgages.
But then it tried to make the possessive of that name:
Pilgrim_?_ growers say they earn about 5 cents per pound per bird, but Pilgrim_?_ finances were so dire that it decided to terminate some contracts.
What combination of punctuation and s-letters goes at the question marks?
I think it has to be pilgrim's's or pilgrim's', were you not to rewrite the sentence. Rewriting the sentence is what I had originally suggested to Shu, and he said that wasn't his question.
