Marine Corps Possessive [duplicate]
Solution 1:
As a Marine myself, I can tell you that "Marine Corp's" is completely wrong.
It is technically correct to use either:
Marine Corps's
or
Marine Corps'
If you look hard enough you will find examples of both, and typically one may be preferred. I have never seen either stated as incorrect; one is either more or less preferred than then other.
I personally would stay away from using "Marine Corps's" not only because of personal preference, but because you will get the occasional mispronunciation as "corpses", which, while it is often a Marine's primary mission to turn an enemy into a corpse, we do not like to hear our name mispronounced as such.
Solution 2:
There is a Marine Corps writing guide [here]. 1 It is not clear on the specific question you ask, but it does not use Marine Corps'. Marine Corp's is out of the question.
Solution 3:
Great question!
Technically, the word corps is singular. You could therefore make an argument for the use of the regular possessive form: the Marine Corps’s secret.
Things are complicated by the fact that Marine Corps is also a proper name. Once again, we expect the regular possessive form, except in the case of commonly accepted usages like Jesus’ suffering and Achilles’ heel.
I suspect many authors treat corps as plural. Consequently, the shortened form the Marine Corps’ secret is likely prevalent.
My personal bias is for accepted usage. Others on this forum may prefer the more logical “prescriptive” answer. As is often the case in such gray areas, when there is no “right” there is “consistent.”
Incidentally, it is possible to find both forms in well-regarded papers like The New York Times. Consider the following two examples:
This was one sequence in the Combat Endurance Test, the opening exercise in the Marine Corps’ Infantry Officer Course — one of the most redoubtable male-only domains in the American military.1
and
Like the men, women will have to perform the exercises on the Marine Corps’s annual physical fitness test as “dead hang” pull-ups, without the benefit of the momentum from a lower-body swing.2
- http://web.archive.org/web/20140129050256/http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/09/us/grueling-course-for-marine-officers-will-open-its-doors-to-women.html?pagewanted=all
- http://web.archive.org/web/20140625034125/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/us/politics/first-pull-ups-then-combat-marines-say.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3As%2C[%22RI%3A5%22%2C%22RI%3A16%22]