Can possessives in the middle of a word exist?

Solution 1:

The heart of your question really comes down to the rules about compound words (not apostrophes per se) since that's the only time you would potentially have a possessive apostrophe in the middle of a word.

Algonquin College has a nice write up about compound rules, which can be found here: http://plato.algonquincollege.com/applications/guideToGrammar/?page_id=4523

Compound words start out as commonly combined separate words, often evolve into hyphenated words, and eventually become combined into one word. (open form, hyphenated form, and closed form, respectively).

When a possessive open form compound evolves to the hyphenate or closed form, the internal apostrophe is moved to the end to help avoid confusion. Punctuation is supposed to clarify meaning, after all.

~ ~ ~

Just for fun, here's some possible confusion to think about -

An internal possessive apostrophe would be indistguishable from a contraction apostrophe: groom'sman = groom + 'sman. I don't know what 'sman might be short for, hopefully someone can think of something!

If the compound word itself was possessive: bride'smaid's dress could possibly look like the bride's maid dress.

You could even end up with the plural possessive: groom'smen's suits, and bride'smaids' dresses.

Or for maximal apostrophe use: bride'smaids's dresses. 🤦🏻‍♀️