Parents' Evening or Parents Evening?

[HouseOfBamboo]

Which is right?

Or are both right as you can get away with no apostrophe because it's an adjective?

If they are both right, which is MORE right?

Parent is a noun, not an adjective. I would always use the apostrophe.

Definitely with the apostrophe.

IMHO

Ha, I thought so, ta.

Phew, that's lucky!
I proof read our school's parents' evening letter yesterday and left the apostrophe in!
Thought it was right, but then this thread made me doubt myself!

with with with!

With. But it's one of those instances where it is so often written without the apostrophe that it has almost become redundant.

Just to say, in a noun phrase such as 'garden wall' the word garden is used as an adjective to define the type of wall, even though usually it would be thought of as a noun. So in 'Parents Evening' the word 'Parents' can be seen as describing the kind of evening it is, not necessarily an evening belonging to parents. That is why both can be seen to be correct, though I prefer not to use the apostrophe as less punctuation can seem neater.

When a noun modifies another noun, as in 'garden wall', the modifying noun should be singular. A pie of cherries is not a cherries pie. This even applies when the noun cannot normally be used in its singular form: you say 'knicker elastic' and 'trouser press', but not 'a knicker' or 'a trouser'. So I don't think 'parents evening' can be justified by this argument - it would have to be 'parent evening'.