{"id":3692,"date":"2020-09-29T23:00:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-30T05:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/?p=3692"},"modified":"2020-12-09T16:28:07","modified_gmt":"2020-12-09T22:28:07","slug":"expressing-possession-greater-than-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/pronouns\/expressing-possession-greater-than-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Expressing Possession Greater Than One"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Communicating joint ownership can be a grammatical no-man\u2019s land for many of us. Whether we were listening, speaking, or writing, we\u2019ve probably found ourselves with statements similar to these:<\/p>\n<p><em>Chuck and Joe\u2019s vacation resorts are in South America.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Chuck\u2019s and his vacation resorts are in South America.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Theirs and Marla\u2019s meetings are on Tuesday.<\/em><br \/>\n<em>Marla and their meetings are on Tuesday.<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Even the most particular of us can get caught here, especially when we\u2019re not able to pause and think harder. To help reinforce clarity, we\u2019ll further discuss joint possession.<\/p>\n<p>Our Rules 4a and 4b of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/punctuation\/apostro.asp\">Apostrophes<\/a> maintain our guiding principles:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If two people possess the same item, put the apostrophe + <em>s<\/em> after the second name only: <em>Chuck and Joe\u2019s vacation resorts are in South America <\/em>(they jointly own the resorts).<\/li>\n<li>In cases of separate rather than joint possession, use the possessive form for both: <em>Chuck\u2019s and Joe\u2019s vacation resorts are in South America <\/em>(they each own different resorts).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When joint ownership includes one or more pronouns, use the <strong>proper possessive<\/strong> adjective form (<em>my, your, his, her, our, their<\/em>).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"display: block; margin-left: 20px;\"><em><strong>Examples:<\/strong><\/em><br \/>\n<em>Chuck\u2019s and his vacation resorts are in South America. <\/em>(Because we have two people in the possessive, according to our guidance it should be clear that ownership is separate.\u00a0However, if using a pronoun might leave the question of whether possession is joint or individual, retain the original identifiers.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"display: block; margin-left: 20px;\"><em>Their and Marla&#8217;s meetings are on Tuesday.<\/em>\u00a0(The possessive adjective is\u00a0<em>their<\/em>\u00a0not\u00a0<em>theirs<\/em>.) OR\u00a0<em>Marla and their meetings are on Tuesday.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n<p>These principles also apply to possession involving more than two nouns.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"display: block; margin-left: 20px;\"><strong><em>Examples:<\/em><\/strong><br \/>\n<em>Marla, Dalia, and Roberta\u2019s meetings are on Tuesday.<\/em> (All three are attending the same meetings.)<br \/>\n<em>Marla\u2019s, Dalia\u2019s, and Roberta\u2019s meetings are on Tuesday. <\/em>(They are each attending separate meetings.)<br \/>\n<em>Marla&#8217;s, Dalia&#8217;s, and her meetings are on Tuesday.\u00a0<\/em>(Because we have two preceding possessors establishing separate ownership, the pronoun does not cause confusion.)<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Properly expressing possession may continue to be tricky, especially in spoken conversation. Committing to giving it focus, practice, and thought will support our mission for precision.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Pop Quiz<\/h2>\n<p>Using what you\u2019ve considered in this article, choose the correct sentence of each pair concerning joint possession.<\/p>\n<p>1a. I really want mine and Annette\u2019s date to go smoothly.<br \/>\n1b. I really want my and Annette\u2019s date to go smoothly.<\/p>\n<p>2a. Ours and their weddings were both on Valentine\u2019s Day.<br \/>\n2b. Their and our weddings were both on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n<p>3a. Catopia and Doglandia\u2019s stances on achieving a truce keep changing.<br \/>\n3b. Catopia\u2019s and Doglandia\u2019s stances on achieving a truce keep changing.<\/p>\n<p>4a. Dagmar and Dietrich\u2019s contribution to the art expo increased attendance.<br \/>\n4b. Dagmar\u2019s and Dietrich\u2019s contribution to the art expo increased attendance.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Pop Quiz Answers<\/h3>\n<p><strong>1b. <\/strong><strong>I really want my and Annette\u2019s date to go smoothly. <\/strong>(<em>I really want Annette\u2019s and my date to go smoothly <\/em>would also be correct.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>2b. Their and our weddings were both on Valentine\u2019s Day. <\/strong>(Use the proper possessive adjective forms.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>3b. Catopia\u2019s and Doglandia\u2019s stances on achieving a truce keep changing. <\/strong>(They have separate <em>stances<\/em>.)<\/p>\n<p><strong>4a. Dagmar and Dietrich\u2019s contribution to the art expo increased attendance. <\/strong>(They jointly made a <em>contribution<\/em>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Communicating joint ownership can be a grammatical no-man\u2019s land for many of us. Whether we were listening, speaking, or writing, we\u2019ve probably found ourselves with statements similar to these: Chuck and Joe\u2019s vacation resorts are in South America. Chuck\u2019s and his vacation resorts are in South America. Theirs and Marla\u2019s meetings are on Tuesday. Marla [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,34,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3692","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-apostrophes","category-possessives","category-pronouns"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3692"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3692\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3692"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3692"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3692"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}