Boyfriend or boyfriend's?

Question

Hello,

Do you know which is correct?

-She is a friend of my boyfriend's.
-She is a friend of my boyfriend.

I have the urge to use 'boyfriend's' at the end of this statement, though it seems to make little sense.

Thanks much!

MountainHiker · Accepted Answer

1) She is a friend of my boyfriend's friend. - okay (corollary: The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Okay, okay, bad joke.)

2) She is a friend of my boyfriend. - okay

3) She is a friend of my boyfriend's. - wrong. "boyfriend's" implies some sort of possessive. See #1.

Hope that helps.

Prabeersikdar · Answer

Hi!
Another way to write the second sentence would be " she is my boyfriend's friend".

PASTEL · Answer

Hi, MountainHiker,

I have a question here.
<>

You are right that 'boyfriend's' implies sort of possessive, I would say it behaves like a 'doubel genitive' or 'possesive/double pronoun'.

For examples
She's a friend of mine.
She's a friend of ours.
She's a friend of my boyfriend's.

Another example
a picture of my sister.

> I have a picture at hand now. The person on the photo is my sister.
a picture of my sister's.

> It's one of the pictures that belongs to my sister.

What do you think?

BTW, the joke is not that bad though.

Maj · Answer

The joke is not that bad???? Gosh, this is the worst joke ever. How could I have been so stupid, dear, not to imagine the joke before hand? Don't worry dear vengeance is served on a cold plate and I'll be having plenty of time to counteract your morbid attack. This time I am going to use all my powers against you, dear.

MountainHiker · Answer

What do you think?

You raise a good point. I am going to defer and let one of the experts (Miriam or Migo) answer that question completely.

But I still wouldn't write, (1) "She's a friend of one of my boyfriend's."

Even if it is grammatically correct-~~and I don't think it is~~-it is very confusing. If you were to say it out loud, I think you would have an impossible time to say that sentence as it is, and yet mean she is a friend of your boyfriend. Out loud, it sounds like this: (2) "She's a friend of one of my boyfriends."

If you say it out loud, it seems to indicate that she is a friend of one of your many boyfriends. In other words, you have boyfriends Tom, ***, Harry, John, Paul, and Keith, and one of those men is friends with her.

I would simply rewrite it as, (3) "She's a friend of one of my boyfriend's friends." Say that five times quickly. Lol. It is an awkward sentence, no doubt about it.

So you might be correct with your "double genitive or possessive/double pronoun" but it is confusing. If you leave it as it is, the reader is likely to wonder if there is a typo or something. It's awkward. If you write it as I have in sentence 3, it is clearer, though it is still an awkward sentence.

So I don't know if I have helped you.

Excellent question, by the way.

I will watch this post to see what the actual answer is myself. I am just using my "everyday common exposure" to English as my guide.

Donald · Answer

I think "A friend of my boyfriend's" is correct ,and I am quite agree with what pastle said

Miriam · Answer

Pastel is definitly right.
The "double possessive" (an idiomatic construction of the language in which both the 's form and of are used together) is correct in the"boyfriend" sentence.

In the case of the sentence "a friend of my boyfriend's", the double possessive is needed. A different construction, however, could be used: "one of my boyfriend's friends".

The double possessive is important because it helps the speaker/writer make a difference in meaning between sentences such as those Pastel posted about "a picture of my sister/sister's". The use of the double possessive avoids confusion. Here's another example:

"A portrait of Rembrandt" is one portraying him.
"A portrait of Rembrandt's" is one painted or owned by him.

If English didn't have these two constructions, it would be difficult ~~even impossible~~ to understand the meaning of certain sentences.

Miriam

MountainHiker · Answer

Miriam has weighed in and said it is okay. I still wouldn't write a sentence like that though. To me (and it just one person's opinion), it is still ambigous.

D i s r e g a r d - t h e - f o l l o w i n g
Stick with Miriam's explanation

1) She's a friend of my boyfriend's (what).

2) She's a friend of my boyfriend's dog. Could be, dogs have friends.

3) She's a friend of my boyfriend's dad. Could be, dads have friends.

4) She's a friend of my boyfriend's mom. Could be, moms have friends.

5) She's a friend of my boyfriend's enemy. Could be.....

And on and on...

If we look at Miriam's two examples more closely...

6)

"A portrait of Rembrandt" is one portraying him.,

7)

"A portrait of Rembrandt's" is one painted or owned by him.

Her first example is obvious. It has to be a painting of Rembrandt.

A portrait of Rembrandt's, is again obvious because Rembrandt's owns the portrait or created the portrait.

But in our example, (1) "She's a friend of my boyfriend's". I still don't know WHAT that possessive is.

And, of course, there is still the possibility that the reader might make the mistake and think it was a typo and infer, "She is a friend of my boyfriends". You have several boyfriends and she is friends with them.

So to sum up, it appears that you are correct. But that said, I wouldn't use that as a sentence because I find it ambiguous.

Miriam's two example are good as are your two picture examples.

I hope we've covered all the bases.

PASTEL · Answer

(I'm sorry it's lengthy.)
As a language learner, I think your answers are very helpful and appreciated, at least to me.

Mirium,
Your positive confirm just made my day. Thank you for noticing this thread.

MountainHiker,
I didn't mean to challenge. I need to know all possible situations they could be. Mirium's and your explanations are impressive. Thanks for your thoughfulness, I agree with you that the context is very important because it may cause ambiguity.

<>
I agree that if you read out loud (not need to be loud though), it just sounds like 'Shes a friend of my boyfriends.' I omit those apostrophe. If we discuss as a view from spoken language, these would be possible ambiguities in a written from.

Spoken form
<>

Written form
1. She's a friend of my boyfriend's.

> She is my boyfriend's friend.
2. She's a friend of my boyfriends'

> She might be Mike's girlfriend, Peter's or John's. And Mike, Peter and John are my boyfriends.

You just mentioned the following alternatives at the same time,

2) She's a friend of my boyfriend's dog. Could be, dogs have friends.

3) She's a friend of my boyfriend's dad. Could be, dads have friends.

4) She's a friend of my boyfriend's mom. Could be, moms have friends.

5) She's a friend of my boyfriend's enemy. Could be.....

And on and on...

At first glance, I thought you made sence. I still think you make sense on that part. But I would think that a 'double possesive' functions more like a 'possesive pronoun.'

For example.
This is my book.
That is your book.

> This is my book and that is yours.

> yours=your+s=posessive+pronoun=your+book

I don't know if I make myself clearly. ( I have limited command of English, but I'd like to try and share) When you are talking about the same 'topic', here in our examples, 'friend' is the shared topic.

She's a friend[TOPIC] of my boyfriend's friend[TOPIC].

The latter topic is omitted, however, "my boyfriend's" forms a double possesive. And if I want to say 'she is a friend of my boyfrined's father's friends,' I'd say
==> ''She is a friend of my boyfrined's father's.' instead of 'she is a friend of my boyfrined's father.' In this way, there is more consistancy in the usage of double possesive as in Mirium's post.
<>

MountainHiker, if I misunderstood your post or if I make any mistake here, please let me know.

Before I'm going, I have one more question,

This is a photo of my sister. (correct)
This is a friend of my boyfriend. (I don't think this very right, but I could be very wrong too.)

Please comment.

MountainHiker · Answer

Pastel,

In rereading my post, I might be making too much of this example.

Stick with Miriam's explanation, and disregard my answer.

This is a photo of my sister.
This is a friend of my boyfriend.

Both are correct. You could rephrase sentence two as, "This is one of my boyfriend's friends."

Boyfriend or boyfriend's?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions