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.