sentence construction - What's the plural of project in-charge?

Check this scenario -

"There's a bug in software your company built."
"Oh, I'm so sorry. You may meet the project in-charge (say he's Jack) for that."

The question now:

What if there are many people in-charge. Say, Jack, Jill, Johny and Michael?

"There's a bug in software your company built."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. You may meet the project in-charges for that." - is certainly incorrect.

If anyone answers that in-charge is always one person, the question's solved!

Note: project in-charge is a noun in this case.

Answer

When pluralizing multiple-word terms, we often pluralize the first word, because that is where the noun resides:

• one attorney at law, three attorneys at law


• one mother-in-law, three brothers-in-law


• one ambassador at large, three ambassadors at large

However, if the first word (or words) function as a qualifier, we pluralize the noun at the end:

• one department head, two department heads


• one county deputy sheriff, two county deputy sheriffs


• one Juvenile Firesetter Intervention Specialist, two Juvenile Firesetter Intervention Specialists

In the case of project in-charge, in-charge is the position title, and project is a qualifier; therefore:

• one project in-charge, four project in-charges

As I mentioned in an earlier comment, even if each project has only one in-charge, that won't negate the need for a plural.

Our company has five in-charges on the payroll, but only four of them are working as an in-charge right now, because we only have four projects at the moment. However, if we land that contract with Acme Aerospace next month, we'll take Brice off of Thelma's project, and he'll be the in-charge for the Acme project.