Grammar folk, put the apostrophe in the correct place in the following sentance:

[Northerner]

If you combined every member of the teams yearly experience

Where would it go in the word teams? BIG debate here in office chez northerner.

Ta very muchly.

[dinosaure]

If there is only one team - then it is team's.

But it would be more elegant to say:"...if you combined every team member's yearly experience"

[beansontoast]

where's hunker?

[beansontoast]

sorry dino!..dint mean to sya you were'nt good enough!

[NotQuiteCockney]

I'm with dinosaure. On both her points. Not clear how else you could punctuate it.

[JanH]

If you combined the yearly experience of every member of the team.

More elegant and no apostrophe's (joke!)

[dinosaure]

Ooh I like that JanH!

[motherinferior]

I would delete 'of the team', and add an apostrophe and S to the end of member.

[NotQuiteCockney]

Now I'm just bothered by "yearly experience". It's a strange phrase.

I'd be inclined to say something like "The team have a combined experience of X years."

[JanH]

Why thank you, ma'am.

(I am a sad little pedant who spends many happy minutes rephrasing things for fun!)

[JanH]

Ohhhh, I thought it meant one year for every member (behave, MI!)

[dinosaure]

Well, you'd have a field day in my office, a treasure trove of clunky prose (not written by me, I hasten to add).

[OldieMum]

I wouldn't use 'yearly', because that means 'each year'. I would say, 'if you combined all team members' years of experience', or 'if you combined the years of experience represented by each member of the team'

[dinosaure]

I wondered about that, OldieMum, but as northerner hadn't asked that question, I didn't answer it...bit of a work to rule type, me.

[OldieMum]

Notquitecockney's is better, though.

[JanH]

How about introducing a nice clunky member-years (as in man-days in maths exercises)?

[motherinferior]

The team has a combined experience of X years, NQC. It's a collective noun. Rant. Rave. Froth.

[motherinferior]

I like the idea of member-years.

[NotQuiteCockney]

Well, if you're trying to emphasize the members of the team, mi, you can use have. But yeah, has is better.

[motherinferior]

I am quite sure the members are adequate without further emphasis, dearie.

[dinosaure]

Fnar fnar.

[NotQuiteCockney]

:-P

Must go back to having grammar debates about whether "I ain't got no McDonalds is valid" ... much easier to bait people in those ...

[nannyme]

teams' or team's (?) and sentence btw!

[NotQuiteCockney]

It couldn't be teams', as dinosaure says, there is only one team.

[nannyme]

Oh okay I missed the bit that clarified whether it was teams plural!

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

what happens if you do combine said experience? just wondering. Also it might effect the feasibility of NCQ's otherwise perfect solution. Although it is very feasible it can broken into 2 sentences. (why have one when you can chop them into two?). The team has a combined experience of x years. This is .../represents...