Health Care and The Norman Conquest

With the passage of the health care bill has come the threat from various Attorney Generals to contest it. The print and broadcast media have defiantly used the plural “Attorneys General” signifying perhaps, by this awkward construction, a scorn for those who might pluralize the office as Attorney Generals even though the proper and natural plural should be just that, Attorney Generals. Usually not interested in such trivia but the sanctimonious usage of this pluralization is so condescending it deserves some reply. The office of Attorney-General was created in 1461(note the hyphen). It was a unitary title. If you go back far enough the word “attorney” derives from a verb form meaning appointed, and thus, historically, “attorney” would be the modifier. The argument that the term is French-Norman where the modifier follows the noun such as "force majeure" is invalid. By 1461 the Norman era was long over, and the era of Middle English was concluding. Remember Chaucer died in 1400. Pluralizing the word attorney moreover is awkward, and creating the possessive becomes even more problematic. Also consider the other parallel constructs which are unitary positions/titles e.g. Postmaster General, Toastmaster General or Army General. OK, admittedly, Attorneys (sic) General now has a validity based on usage, but not on utility, history, and grammatical logic. Just don’t get me started on “brother-in-laws”.