# Grammar question -- multiple possessives **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 17, 2003, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051 "2003-07-17T03:16:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![curly\_chick](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/7ba0ec/32.png) [@curly\_chick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/curly_chick)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/81 "2003-07-18T13:32:32Z")
In **dantheman** ’s, \*\*jiimm’\*\*s, **Zoe** ’s, countless others’ and my opinion, **Vastard** and sis will have no cats left. They will have died of old age and I will surely have died of boredom. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/82 "2003-07-18T13:42:36Z")
**dantheman** , we’re done. I don’t know what your linguistic background is, but it’s obviously so different from mine that further discussion is pointless. If you’re curious where I’m coming from, have a look at _Transformational Grammar: A First Course_ by Andrew Radford ([link](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0521347505/qid=1058534706/sr=8-2/ref=sr_8_2/103-0049822-2540615?v=glance&s=books&n=507846)). > [@](#): > > **jjimm** : Should I add a few more "ever"s to my statement “never ever”? It might be descriptive of what people say in Texas, but I’ve certainly never heard it in Ireland or the UK. OK, it could be a dialectal difference. I had no idea so many people would be so violently opposed to it… I hear it and use it all the time. > [@](#): > > **pulykamell** : “My sister and me’s dogs” is decidedly un-English. If anyone is sounding prescriptivist, it’s you, hazel-rah as I doubt if anyone did a survey on this sentence (which linguists do do to test grammar) I very much doubt that anybody would insist this sounds like good English. Sigh. I know what linguists do, I am a linguist. If the “and me’s” construction is so decidedly un-English, how come when I google “and me’s” I can find so many examples of this un-English construction? If you expand the search to include “and I’s” which people in this thread seem to find equally distasteful, you come across even more. You can see why I am at odds with **dantheman** who asserts that it is never said or written. Obviously people do it all the time: “Welcome to Ghost Of You And Me’s message board! Here you can post anything you like…captions for Caption the Picture, messages to me, or anything about BBMak!” ([link](http://www.b2g2.com/boards/board.cgi?action=search&user=bbmakgoyam)) “although, the fact that you continue to read skye and me’s blog makes me laugh. the inane girlyness of our blog and yet you read it.” ([link](http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:9zqd6utIct4J:awaitingtheisland.blogspot.com/2003_02_16_awaitingtheisland_archive.html+%22and+me%27s%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8)) “Everyone else had 4 people in their groups, so the prof conjoined [tee hee] Brian and Jennifer to Gabe and me’s group!!!” ([www.boomshakalakalaka.blogspot.com/2002\_11\_17\_boomshakalakalaka\_archive.html+%22and+me%27s%22&hl=en&ie=UTF-8](http://216.239.37.104/search?q=cache:BRZlaWOMBpoJ:%5Burl)"]link) Page title: my mom and me’s horse page ([link](http://www.photoaspects.com/horsepostcards/horsephotos.html)) Aside from that, I know from doing my own research that how people think they speak and how they actually speak when I record them talking are two vastly different things. -fh ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/83 "2003-07-18T13:46:35Z")
I see that first example is a proper name of sorts… no matter, google for yourself and you can find hundreds of examples. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/84 "2003-07-18T13:48:12Z")
I’m glad you concede the argument. Are you seriously telling us you googled “me’s” and are using **that** as evidence that it’s used? You must be off your rocker. On the one hand, you seem to be arguing that it’s a perfectly acceptable answer to the OP’s question. On the other hand, the evidence you provide that it’s used frequently consists mainly of Weblogs and personal Web sites. (This, of course, doesn’t count the oodles of “Windows Me” references one finds when searching.) ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/85 "2003-07-18T13:54:49Z")
I don’t concede the argument. I still firmly believe that I am correct on every point I have rasied. I just don’t think it’s worth arguing about it with you anymore. Pay attention. I didn’t google “me’s” I googled on “and me’s” or “and I’s” and was able to find plenty of examples aside from the irrelevant Windows ME matches, etc. I am talking about web pages using the construction in the exact same way as I suggested the OP use it. Since we’re talking about language, blogs and personal Web sites are perfect examples. This is how people are actually using English. The real world. It’s right there in front of you. You said nobody ever said or wrote anything like “my sister and me’s cats.” Yet… there they are. Dozens of them, hundreds if you include the “and I’s” construction. Using it just like I said people did. -fh ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/86 "2003-07-18T13:58:45Z")
Funny, I would think a linguist would be trying to answer the question in terms of correct English, not how people “actually” use English. So now we finally have it. You’re putting forth that ridiculous construction because people on the Internet use it this way? After stating previously in this thread that many online sources are incorrect, this seems more than a little incongruous. Sounds to me like you’re just picking and choosing your references. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/87 "2003-07-18T14:02:10Z")
**Hazel-rah** - Perhaps then it is a dialectal difference. My guess is that the majority of English speakers would mark that as incorrect, but I haven’t done any actual research, so I don’t know. It seems the small sampling here agree, but we don’t exactly have a random sample of English speakers here, now do we? So I think from a descriptivist standpoint your construction would be considered non-standard (if my suppositions are true.) Now, I will concede this: “My sister and me’s dog” does sound weird to me. But reverese the construction “Me and my sister’s dog” and it sounds fine from my background, although I would never use it in any formal context, as I know it’s “incorrect.” So maybe you do have a point, but I think my construction (background: south side Chicago) would also be considered “non-standard.” But it standard written English, which is prescriptivist for the most part, it is unacceptable to write the sentence as you have suggested, or as I have suggested, because it does appear to cause confusion among readers. And I do agree that possessive "'s"es can attach themselves to noun phrases, as has been demonstrated, although a possessive “s” after “me” sounds very, very wrong to my ears. So that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/88 "2003-07-18T14:24:22Z")
> [@](#): > > Funny, I would think a linguist would be trying to answer the question in terms of correct English, not how people “actually” use English. No, linguists tend to be more concerned with how people actually use English. My statement that many online sources are incorrect was in regards to English usage web sites regarding the “you and me” vs “you and I” debate. It was not a statement about the validity of online sources in general. -fh ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/89 "2003-07-18T14:42:11Z")
Well, at any rate, through my googling on the phrase “My friend and me’s” and variants, this is what I got: “Me and my friend’s” -763 “My friend and I’s” - 112 “My friend and me’s” -1 “Me and my brother’s” - 416 “My brother and I’s” - 42 “My brother and me’s” - 4 Now, some of the “me and my x’s” constructions don’t actually refer to double possession, but a good bit do. So from googling, it seems that the “x and me’s” construction is decidedly unpopular compared with the variants. I would say “my brother and I’s” could possibly be used by me in speech. But I still maintain, the evidence _seems_ to indicate both forms are non-standard. ---
**Author:** ![hazel-rah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/73ab20/32.png) [@hazel-rah](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hazel-rah)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/90 "2003-07-18T14:43:14Z")
> [@](#): > > So I think from a descriptivist standpoint your construction would be considered non-standard (if my suppositions are true.) Well, I would say that it’s very informal but still a feature of Standard English. If the question is one of how it should be _written_ (in the sense of proposals, theses, essays, newspaper articles) then I’ll pass the buck to the copy-editors in the thread. Although I’d still claim large portions of the web as the domain of descriptivists (some blogs, chat rooms and some message boards), and technically that’s written material : ) ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/91 "2003-07-18T15:00:46Z")
OK, I can buy that. It’s just that the “me” following the “and” is what bugs me particularly, but from my own reference, it seems quite a few people use either “you and me” or “you and I” exclusively. Although I’ve read quite a few descriptivist and prescriptivist treatments of English grammar and briefly studied some linguistics in university, I’ve never heard this “oblique” case (was it a case?) that you’ve mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/92 "2003-07-18T21:17:27Z")
> [@](#): > > Hazel:…using I instead of me with a conjunction is a widespread error[/u. and > [@](#): > > Hazel: Since we’re talking about language, blogs and personal Web sites are perfect examples. This is how people are actually using English. So…If it is widespread you still consider it an error but if it is how people actually speak, it is correct. No one is going to accuse you of “a foolish consistency.” Take note that the title of the OP is: _A **grammar** question – multiple possessives_ It is not a question about the way language is used (linguistics). Vastard, welcome to SDMB! ---
**Author:** ![Another\_Clone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e9a140/32.png) [@Another\_Clone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Another_Clone)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/93 "2003-07-18T21:55:04Z")
I don’t think I’m seeing right. Time to visit the optician. You can not be serious!!! Me’s cats? Me is the accusative or dative case of the word “I”. You need to use the possessive derived from the word “I” which qualifies “cats” - and that’s “my”. Nominative - I Accusative - me Genitive - my Dative - me There you are - simple! So the sentence should be: My sister’s and my cats. (Always put your sister first). Next question? ---
**Author:** ![hibernicus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hibernicus/32/2802_2.png) [@hibernicus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hibernicus)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/94 "2003-07-18T22:19:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > **At any rate, that’s an ambiguity, not an inconsistency. The style book was treating the different situations differently, that’s all.** No, it’s treating identical solutions differently. I pointed out the inconsistency as clearly as I could using examples. All I can think of is to explain it again, using fewer words and clearer examples. The style book recommends: Case 1: “Ann’s and Betty’s cats” (distinct ownership relations) and “Ann and Betty’s cats” (shared ownership) where the different meanings have different written and spoken forms. It then recommends: Case 2: “Ann’s and my cats” (distinct) and “Ann’s and my cats” (shared) where the different meanings have the same written and spoken form. It is not the ambiguity in Case 2 that bothers me, it is the inconsistency between Case 1 and Case 2. Different situations? Not if I’m Betty. > [@](#): > > \*\* > In each of those sentences, the boat - and **only** the boat - is doing the possessing. > \*\* The big boat, in one case, and the not-necessarily-big boat in the other. The reason there are two different meanings to the phrase: “The big boat’s wheel” is that, contrary to your earlier assertion, the apostrophe-s modifies the entire noun phrase and not just the word to which it is attached. You acknowledged this when you suggested recasting the sentence as “The wheel of the big boat” Finally, I want to try to show why it doesn’t matter whether “me’s” is a word. Consider film and book titles that end in words that can not normally be modified by apostrophe-s: Roger and Me’s deeper message Killing Me Softly’s haunting melody Start Me Up’s guitar riff It doesn’t matter that there is no such word as “softly’s” or “up’s” or that the possessive form of “me” is “my” - the apostrophe-s is being added to the entire title, not the last word (which would be nonsensical in both cases). Of course you could recast both phrases for stylistic reasons, but they are grammatically correct nonetheless. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 18, 2003, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/95 "2003-07-18T22:32:51Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by hibernicus \* > \*\*No, it’s treating identical solutions differently. > > I pointed out the inconsistency as clearly as I could using examples. All I can think of is to explain it again, using fewer words and clearer examples.\*\* They’re still different situations. In one, there are two people owning multiple cats exclusively (that is, no cat is owned by both people). In the other, there are two people who share in the ownership of all of the cats. The problem is that both situations are ambiguous, although the sentence context might solve that. > [@](#): > > The big boat, in one case, and the not-necessarily-big boat in the other. > The reason there are two different meanings to the phrase: > “The big boat’s wheel” > is that, contrary to your earlier assertion, the apostrophe-s modifies the entire noun phrase and not just the word to which it is attached. You acknowledged this when you suggested recasting the sentence as > “The wheel of the big boat” Nope. The boat is the possessor, the wheel is the possessee. “big” is merely an adjective modifying “boat” and has nothing to do with the possession. > [@](#): > > Finally, I want to try to show why it doesn’t matter whether “me’s” is a word. Consider film and book titles that end in words that can not normally be modified by apostrophe-s: > Roger and Me’s deeper message > Killing Me Softly’s haunting melody > Start Me Up’s guitar riff Those are all proper nouns and are acting as one entity, but not as a phrase. They’re simply names. These don’t follow the same convention as common nouns or noun phrases. > [@](#): > > Of course you could recast both phrases for stylistic reasons, but they are grammatically correct nonetheless. They’re only correct because those are the actual names of a movie and two songs. Grammar style and rules aren’t needed with multiword proper nouns. ---
**Author:** ![Tradnor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/cab0a1/32.png) [@Tradnor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tradnor)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/96 "2003-07-19T02:06:12Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > **Those are all proper nouns and are acting as one entity, but not as a phrase. They’re simply names. These don’t follow the same convention as common nouns or noun phrases.** So proper nouns act as a single unit, no matter how many or which words are involved, and you can add a suffix to the end that applies to the whole thing. How is this so different from > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by dantheman \* > **This isn’t math. You can’t just place parentheses around a phrase and add something to the end that applies to the entire phrase. Doesn’t work that way.** ? I’m not a linguist, but I have read Radford’s _Transformational Grammar_ and he does show evidence that sentences are built in this manner. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 11:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/97 "2003-07-19T11:31:46Z")
It’s different in the same way that saying “_The Hours_ goes on endlessly” is grammatically correct, whereas “The hours goes on endlessly” isn’t. ---
**Author:** ![dantheman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dantheman/32/9421_2.png) [@dantheman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dantheman)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 11:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/98 "2003-07-19T11:40:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tradnor \* > \*\*So proper nouns act as a single unit, no matter how many or which words are involved, and you can add a suffix to the end that applies to the whole thing. How is this so different from ? > > I’m not a linguist, but I have read Radford’s _Transformational Grammar_ and he does show evidence that sentences are built in this manner. \*\* Simply because the words in a noun phrase behave in accordance with standard grammar rules, whereas proper nouns don’t have to, as in the example provided by **jr8**. ---
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/99 "2003-07-19T19:23:00Z")
Back to _Harbrace_ again: > [@](#): > > Compounds or nouns in joint possession show the possessive in the last word only. But if there is individual (or separate) possession, each noun takes the possessive form. > > Right: My brother-in-law’s house; my brothers-in-law’s houses; someone else’s hat. > Right: Helen and Mary’s piano (joint ownership) > Right: Helen’s and Mary’s clothes (individual ownership) They don’t give an example of incorrect construction, but this would be one: Wrong: Helen’s and Mary’s mother. Wrong: Helen and Mary’s noses. ---
**Author:** ![Nametag](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nametag/32/406_2.png) [@Nametag](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nametag)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2003, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051/100 "2003-07-19T19:45:32Z")
My god. I know an accomplished grammarian who contends that linguistics is the enemy of English usage. I had always written this off as cranky hyperbole, but Hazel-rah has opened my eyes. Linguists ARE the enemy. Hazel-rah, I don’t know if you were an idiot before you studied linguistics, but you certainly sound like one now. And quoting Steven Pinker doesn’t make you sound any smarter. It doesn’t matter how many Web sites or Texans you quote who use constructions like “my sister and me’s cats”; adding zeros will never get you a number larger than zero. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/grammar-question-multiple-possessives/189051.md?page=6)