AssociationĪs we've talked about before, the possessive, or genitive, case isn't just about possession it can also show that someone or something controls or is associated with someone or something else. And it's muddy semantically: the phrase "a dream of Mabel" carries the potential meaning of "a dream about Mabel," which distracts the reader from the meaning intended. It's unidiomatic-no native speaker would say it. It had long been a dream of Mabel to win the baking contest. It had long been Mabel's dream to win the baking contest.īut what if we want to keep that of construction, which is, after all, allowed? Let's see if we can keep it in a single possessive construction: There are, however, people who will tell you to avoid it, which you can easily do by rewriting: This kind of construction, known as the double possessive, or double genitive, dates back to Chaucer's time, and mostly gets used without being remarked upon by native speakers. It had long been a dream of Mabel 's to win the baking contest. Sometimes, however, English speakers will show the possession doubly, using two methods: The winner of the contest would be given the keys to the city. Typically, that thing is not one that can be touched or held. Possessive adjectives and pronouns can often be used instead of a name or noun:Ī less common and more formal way to show possession is with of, which is normally used when it is a thing, rather than a person or animal, that has possession. Mabel's entry in the baking contest was a lemon meringue pie.Įach entry's tag listed only the ingredients used.Ĭontestants' identities were to be entirely unknown to the judges. A singular noun normally gets the 's, while a plural noun that ends in a /s/ or /z/ sound takes simply ': The possessive, or genitive, form in English is typically shown with an 's or ' tacked onto the end of a name or noun. Curiosities of the language being our specialty, we're taking a closer look at the matter here.įirst, a quick review of the grammatical possessive itself. Grammatically, English sometimes gets doubly possessive-think "that mustache of Harry's," which could be revised to be singly possessive as "Harry's mustache." It's a curious thing, when you think about it. We'll illustrate with several delicious pies.
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