"man"/"men" question

[Nordic Bill]

Hello everyone,

I just received notification that I have not posted in a number of weeks. I was in England celebrating my birthday with my mother - my stay dragged on for weeks due to a family emergency and so I haven't even been able to say thanks to everybody for the fond birthday wishes. They were very much appreciated.

And I can see I must submit a posting and I have a great one here. I read a newspaper article not too long ago about a conman visitor who had managed to swindle unsuspecting pensioners door-to-door. Absolutely horrendous, and I'm glad he was caught. Anyway, my question is, how would you pluralize conman visitor? Would that be conmen visitors or conman visitors? (Sort of reminds me of that old mother-in-laws / mothers-in-law question that stumps some).

Hope to hear from someone - great to be back online!

Take care,
Bill

[Tdol]

I think I'd say 'conmen visitors', as we often pluralise words to do with people in compound nouns, but 'conman visitors' could also work.

Welcome back, Bill.

[Nordic Bill]

Thanks very much, Tdol!

Great to be back!

Rgs,
Bill

[Tdol]

Mind you, I must confess that I changed my answer as I wrote it- you do always manage to pick the questions where answers can change from hour to hour.

[Nordic Bill]

Hi Tdol - yes, I can see that now!
I think we can all be in agreement about one thing - English is not an exact science!
Take care,
Bill

[Tdol]

In my case, it's an inexact art.