My usual grammar reference materials are failing me. In writing some ad copy, I need to describe a house as the house of a doctor and a lawyer. Is it “a doctor’s and lawyer’s home,” or “a doctor and lawyer’s home”? The more I look at it, the more wrong they both look.
I considered “the residence of a doctor and a lawyer,” but that sounds clunky and doesn’t fit well with the style I have to use.
Generally, you only have 's once. However, in some cases, you might want to recast, especially where there’s ambiguity. In this case, are the doctor and lawyer one or two people? Is is the house of a doctor and lawyer, or is it the house of a doctor and of a lawyer?
2 people, one doctor and another person who is a lawyer.
Then I’d say “the home of a doctor and of a lawyer” to avoid ambiguity.
My Chicago Manual of Style (13th edition, not the newest) divides this into two categories.
If the two are closely linked nouns forming a single unit, then only use one possessive: “my aunt and uncle’s house” “the skull and crossbones’ symbolic meaning”.
If the two are to be considered separately, use possessives on both: “our son’s and daughter’s playthings”.
I can’t tell from your example into which category it falls. If you want to emphasize that the house belongs to both the doctor and the lawyer, then just use one possessive. If you want to emphasize their separateness, use two.
Note that this is a matter of style, not grammar. There is no definite right and wrong, just shades of emphasis and understanding.
I’m pretty sure it should be “a doctor and lawyer’s home”. To me, this sounds clunkier than “the home of a doctor and of a lawyer”, but if you have to use the possessive, there should only be one apostrophe.
In the case of “my aunt and uncle’s house” it’s clear that there are two people, because a person cannot be both an aunt and an uncle. However, it is possible for a person to be both a doctor and a lawyer, and saying “a doctor and lawyer’s home” suggests to me that there is just one person. Clearer would be “a doctor and a lawyer’s home”, but that’s not very smooth sounding. You might need to recast the whole context, to something like: “Jo is a doctor and Kim is a lawyer, and this is their home.”
These two people are married, but I suspect they may be changing that situation, so I’ve no idea whether they should be a unit or two very separate owners. Their real professions (I substituted doctor and lawyer for the sake of anonymity) are key to this ad, but I can’t use their names.
That “a doctor and a lawyer’s home” isn’t bad, now that I plug it into the rest of the copy.