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Anonymous Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Double possessive

"Bertie was outraged by an affair of Hilde's during World War II."

I know that "Hilde's" is fine idiomatic English and the form that most people would use, but — grammatically speaking — would it still be "correct" English to simply say:

He was outraged by an affair of Hilde during World War II.

Thank you.

(Moderator edit to fix a formatting issue)
  

Top answer

I think you need the possessive because basically the sentence is saying Hilde's affair or more accurately one of Hilde's affairs . Hence an affair of Hilde's . Hope that helps, Wil

— Wrandom

  • I think you need the possessive because basically the sentence is saying Hilde's affair or more accurately one of Hilde's affairs .
  • Hence an affair of Hilde's .
  • Hope that helps, Wil
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3 Answers
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I think you need the possessive because basically the sentence is saying Hilde's affair or more accurately one of Hilde's affairs. Hence an affair of Hilde's.

Hope that helps,

Wil
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I really don't like the double possessive, but it seems to occur quite frequently. Instead of saying, "he's a friend of mine," I change it to "he's one of my friends." In your sentence, I would word it as "He was outraged by Hilde's affair...".
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