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It is not easy to explain why such constructions are idiomatic
It is fairly easy to explain. Back when case meant something in English, when we had nominative, dative, accusative and genitive, prepositions governed cases. Some took more than one case depending on the specific meaning. Thus in took the dative if it was expressing motion into something and accusative if expressed location in something.
Nowdays, we have lost much of the notion of case. We have, at best, three cases, subjective, objective and possessive, and then only in pronouns. This is why reverting to pronouns can be helpful in resolving these questions, as Wordwind pointed out so ably. In the case of nouns we have only two cases that we can determine from the form of the word, let's call them common and possessive. This being the case we have lost the feeling for prepositions taking certain cases. It's only those that take the possessive that we notice and of is maybe the only one that takes the possessive, and, as the portrait of the king('s) in Bingley's link shows us, it doesn't always take the possessive.
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Carpal Tunnel
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No one's noticed the obvious
You saying Dub's no one?
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Carpal Tunnel
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...We have, at best, three cases, subjective, objective and possessive...
It sounds like *American english to me... the personal, the material and the fantasia.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
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Well, but WW, one might say:
He is her good friend and I read three of her posts.
That sounds right.
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Thanks for the welcome.
As several posters have pointed out, the sentence is correct, as punctuated. The example used in the article I read illustrated the correctness of the "double possessive" as follows: If one were describing, for example, a portrait of Frank versus a portrait owned by Frank, the only acceptable distinction would be the possessive apostrophe in the latter case.
As pointed out by some, the test in such cases is the substitution of a pronoun.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Oh, Clarity! As has been posted elsewhere, it is better when faced with such ambiguity to rephrase the sentence to avoid same.
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In reply to:
Well, but WW, one might say:
He is her good friend and I read three of her posts.
That sounds right.
And I wouldn't argue, although the sentence itself is awkward.
Rephrase it just for fun:
He is hers and I read three of hers.
However, I don't understand the point you're making.
Thanks, Faldage, for the note. I'm becoming accustomed to the muted voice here.
I just reread what I wrote, and the word hers has taken on that other-worldly appearance that words sometimes assume.
hers
Weird. Just plain weird.
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Don't see where Dub said anything about me and mine. She used other pronouns, but I think it's most evident what the best way is when you see how me and mine work in the sentence.
TEd
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the word hers has taken on that other-worldly appearance that words sometimes assume.
welcome to the wonderful world of semiotics.
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Ted:
My voice is often invisible when I'm long-Wordwinded. If you go back and read all the many things I wrote, somewhere in that invisibiity you might find:
Even worse, suppose I replace Robert with myself:
1. John is my good friend. John is a good friend of mine. (2 examples that work.)
2. (But this doesn't work:) John is a good friend of me.
Yuck!
But I dunno. I'm often invisible.
Best regards,
WW
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