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Oh, I agree that "a friend of Molly's" is regarded as correct. But "a friend of Molly" is no more ambiguous and can only mean that and nothing else. Nothing's left dangling. It's just another little example of the way English can be completely internally inconsistent and yet remain useful as a means of communication.
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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> can be completely internally inconsistent and yet remain useful as a means of communication.
True, true. Now I know why learning foreign languages is important!
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Bingley asks: "... he's gone to one of his student's birthday party." Does the panel prefer "one of his student's" or "one of his students'"? Neither feels quite right.
None of them pass the test of the long MIA xara; that is, none of them tastes right. I would say ...he has gone to the birthday party of one of his students.
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tsuwm notes: life's more like a double negative.
But would that be a logical double negative or an emphatic double negative?
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"... he's gone to one of his student's birthday party."I would be inclined to use students'. When you make the phrase one of his students possessive, students is still plural, so you stick the apostrophe after. Rather than above, where it looks like you started with one of his student and made that possessive. And we don't really say things like "Jane was one of his student." But the rewriting for clarity option is probably the wisest. 
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> But the rewriting for clarity option is probably the wisest.
Indeed. I thank you all for muddying the waters (or my watery understanding of the topic) yet further!
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tsuwm notes: life's more like a double negative.
But would that be a logical double negative or an emphatic double negative?
consider the outcome, and then you tell me... 
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Thank you for your input, BY, Faldage, and Bean. I think the problem is that the possessive really refers to the (singular) one, rather than the (plural) students. So in writing I'd have to go with Faldage's suggestion and avoid the problem, although I don't think it's something I'd ever actually say . Fortunately we don't have to worry about apostrophes when speaking.
Bingley
Bingley
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But would that be a logical double negative or an emphatic double negative?Judged by your test, tsuwm, I’d say it’s a genetically-modified emphatically illogical double negative…
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The original: "... he's gone to one of his student's birthday party."
My suggestion: ...he has gone to the birthday party of one of his students.
Unless there were several students having birthday parties that day, in which case it might be: ...he has gone to one of his students' birthday parties, which could be disambiguated* as ...he has gone to one of the birthday parties of... no, no, that's going to be too awkward, let's try ...he has gone to one of the parties that... no that's still going to be ambiguous, ...he has gone to one of the birthday parties that... no that still won't get it, how about ...he's not here.
*I originally had disambguified† in here but Ænigma suggested disambiguate so I went with that.
†Yeah, I had to misspell disambiguified to get disambiguate; it wanted to disappear disambiguified
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