Possessive apostrophe with a parenthetical [closed]

All Realtor(s), dog(s), and cat(s) transactions are forbidden by this agreement. Where do I place possessive apostrophe(s) in the foregoing sentence?

Solution 1:

The "(s)" format of optional plural is a functional rather than linguistic construction, and sometimes you just can't constrain one convention to play by the rules of another. Assuming that, yes, true possessives are intended, then the question of how to simultaneously indicate singular and plural possessives becomes the sort of artificially-created problem that makes philosophical heads hurt.

The answer is: you don't; you rewrite it to be clearer. And let's take a different example, because as Canadian Yankee pointed out, you don't need any parenthetical plurals in the given example. Let's say that our example was: "This sale includes the house(s) and the house(s) grounds." Rather than figuring out where to put an apostrophe, just say something like "This sale includes the house(s) and any associated grounds," or better yet, get away from the "(s)" and just say "This sale includes one or more houses and their grounds."