The “Double Possessive”

Someone’s always questioning the “double possessive” in sentences such as “I am a friend of Bob’s.” “A friend of Bob’s what?” wrote an irate correspondent recently in a nationally-syndicated column about grammar; she concluded, “It should of course be ‘a friend of Bob.’” The nationally-syndicated columnist had no comment.

I have seen this before in such columns, and I am here to set the record straight. It is not a “double possessive,” it is a double genitive, and IT SHOULD BE “A FRIEND OF BOB’S” because the two genitives are different kinds of genitives.

Often, “of” indicates possession, as in “the house of Bob.” OF is actually rarely used this way because it sounds so awkward. Usually we say “Bob’s house.” More often, “of” in these constructions is a partitive genitive – a “box of crayons” doesn’t mean crayons owns a box, it means here is a box holding some crayons (parting them, as it were, from those crayons not in the box). If I have a box of crayons that belong to Bob, I have “a box of Bob’s crayons.” The first genitive, signaled by the “of,” is partitive, the second genitive, signaled by the apostrophe s, is possessive. If a crayon could talk, she might say, “I am a crayon of Bob’s.”– i.e., I am one crayon from among Bob’s crayons. If she wants to use a pronoun, “I am a crayon of his.”

OK, so what about Bob’s friends? “I am a friend of Bob’s” means I am one friend from among Bob’s friends. If we were using pronouns, we’d say “I am a friend of his.” Saying “I am a friend of Bob” is akin to saying “I am a friend of he,” and that’s just wrong.

Now, if Bob only has one friend, she or he would be “the friend of Bob,” but that’s pathetic.

So, stop correcting people who say they are a friend of Bob’s. They’re right, and you’re wrong, so get with the program.

Mixing Metaphors

I've been especially noticing mixed metaphors recently.

Years ago, when I was teaching Freshman Composition at Carolina, a student writing an argumentative paper against animal testing ended her piece with the exclamation, “Animals should not be treated as guinea pigs!”

I laughed – but why was it funny? More important, how could I explain to her what was wrong with that sentence? I ended up writing in the margin, “But animals are guinea pigs. Guinea pigs are animals!” She didn’t get it.

Now, I work with more experienced writers. They are generally academics whose writing I am editing or putting into a different form – making a scientific article readable to a lay audience, for example, or editing collections of articles for publication in book form. I recently received the following in an article commenting on an executive education program that trains public health managers in business skills:

"[This program] illustrates that riches exist across the disciplinary divide. It also suggests a number of fruitful directions for those bold enough to bridge the gap between public health and management."

On first glance, this does not seem to have much in common with the guinea pig sentence. Their similarity lies only in the fact that they use metaphors in (I would say) awkward ways. The guinea pig use was awkward because it could be taken literally. It’s like telling someone out on a lake in January that they’re “skating on thin ice.” The metaphor has come full circle back to the literal sense, and it’s not a metaphor any more.

The public health management quotation is awkward because it mixes its metaphors up like too many cooks calling the kettle black. In this couple of sentences, the author compares the subject to the following:

- pictorial representation (illustration)
- monetary value
- agricultural production
- travel or movement
- bravery or confidence
- crossing an overpass
- opening between two things

You think this program is pretty darn good, but if you look closely at all these metaphors, you begin to see they don’t mean anything. If a metaphor is a comparing of one thing to another, it’s hard to tell what’s being compared to this program. Let’s take one part: “a number of fruitful directions for those bold enough to bridge the gap.” What the person means (I think) is that people from one of the two disciplines (say, public health) who learns about the other discipline (management) will produce good work in many forms.

But “fruitful directions”? Are the directions full of fruit? Like a farmer’s field? And how can “directions” be like fruit anyway? Are they tasty, like an apple, or juicy, like an orange? Perhaps the sentence should read “fruitful directions for those bold enough to bite into its core” (though that seems to be pushing it). Maybe undertakings can bear fruit, metaphorically, or efforts, (the fruit of our labor – some product created by action) -- but what does it mean to have directions be fruitful? Maybe the sentence should read, “a number of fruitful products will be cultivated?” At least that keeps that metaphor consistent, though it ignores the whole idea of direction. But aside from the fruitful directions fiasco, the big problem with this sentence is that all of a sudden we’re intrepidly crossing a bridge. What does boldness have to do with fruit? Why does the farmer cross the road, as it were? To get to the other side and all the tasty directions over there? Or are the directions in the gap that’s being bridged? When did “bridge” become a verb, anyway? In this sentence, does “to bridge” mean to cross or to be a bridge between two things? How can that poor farmer explore all those fruitful directions if he is stretched out being a bridge over the gaping divide?

I boldly crossed the bridge over the disciplinary divide, fruitfully attempting to slay one of my most hated pet peeves – the mixed metaphor.


I’ll leave you with this:

“In addition to presenting research, evidence, science and statistics, we also provide stories - stories of people whose lives have been transformed by illness and by advocacy, of kitchen tables that have given birth to revolutionary legislation.”

(Is that a typo or a messed up metaphor, or personification gone haywire? Whatever it is, it makes me wince)