Tuesday, December 1, 2015

possessives - Is it correct to say "a friend of X and mine" if both X and I know each other and the friend?

As I understand it, if X and Y independently have the same friend Z, we should write




Z is a friend of X's and Y's





but if X and Y collectively have Z as a friend (e.g., X and Y are a couple), then we should indicate that by making the possessive "'s" refer to "X and Y" collectively:




Z is a friend of X and Y's




But if Y is me, how do I write the latter? I think the answer is





Z is a friend of X and mine




but it sounds awkward to me (maybe because the possessive in "mine" sounds like it only refers to me, not to X and me). It sounds better to my ear to write




Z is a friend of X's and mine




but this loses the subtlety that X and I collectively have Z as a friend.

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