Why is it attorneys general and not attorney generals?
In: Other
It is because this in one of those weird archaic constructions where you put the word that modifies another word after it instead of in front of it.
The “General” is not a rank, it an adjective and holds a meaning of “general” as in general vs special.
Normally in English you would say general attorney not attorney general, but this is one of the occasions where English takes something from another language and makes it fit.
There are a number of legal terms taken from French that work like that. For example “court martial”, the martial describes what kind of court it is and the plural (if you are pedantic) is “courts martial” and “force majeure” or “malice aforethought”
Other examples are “battle royal” whose plural is “battles royal”, “notary public”, “sergeant major” and phrases like “arms akimbo” (plural only) or others using adjectives like galore, aplenty, regnant etc will have the adjective after the noun.
In 12 days of christmas you get a lot of these with an “a-” like:
>nine lords a-leapin’, eight maids a-milkin’, Seven swans a-swimmin’, six geese a-layin
There is also names for food that work like that and occasionally phrases where people want to feel old fashioned or fancy.
Alcoholics Anonymous, Enemy Mine or Phoenix Rising are example where you say it backwards because it sounds cooler
Latest Answers