Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Language/2012 August 7

= August 7 =

Grammar question about possessive case
I always understood that the possessive case is denoted by either an apostrophe and "s" or by the word "of" (among other ways). So, a phrase such as "John's car" means essentially the same thing as "the car of John". Or "Mike's computer" means "the computer of Mike". I assume that my understanding is correct. If so, that leads me to my question. I ran across a sentence that read something along the lines of this: "He is a friend of Mike's." Is that correct grammar? Or should it be simply "He is a friend of Mike." (without the apostrophe and "s" after Mike)? Is the word "of" (preceding Mike) and the apostrophe and "s" (after Mike) redundant? Or is it perfectly acceptable, in terms of grammar, to use both and to state: "He is a friend of Mike's."? Thanks. Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 03:42, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * It means he is one of Mike's friends. Consider the difference between "this is a painting of the King" and "this is a painting of the King's". (The sentence you "ran across" was one of Medeis's, wasn't it?) μηδείς (talk) 03:50, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * You can expand this kind of construction to remove the apparent redundancy: He is a friend of [the friends who are] Mike's works, as does He is a friend of Mike's [friends]. Do not confuse "of" to mean that this person is a "friend-of-a-friend"—rather, "of" is used in the sense of "among; selected from a group". The use of "of" in the original is more confusing, as it is easy to mistake for an of-genitive; examples of these were given above (the computer of Mike, etc). dalahäst (let's talk!) 03:58, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Yes, dalahäst. And note it would be unidiomatic to say "The sentence you 'ran across' was one of Medeis." The of and 's (and double possessive) constructions are not strictly interchangeable. See also Possession (linguistics) μηδείς (talk) 04:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The construction expresses a combination of two different senses of the genitive case which in some languages are treated as separate matters. A friend of Mike's = (One of {partitive}{Mike's friends {possessive})).  See genitive case and one of its subsections, double possessive. μηδείς (talk) 04:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * No. "One of Mike's friends" is indeed a partitive construction, but "A friend of Mike's" means exactly the same as "A friend of Mike". Ehrenkater (talk) 17:59, 9 August 2012 (UTC)


 * I dispute this. They have the same denotation, but differ in several ways, most notably because "A friend of Mike" is unusual in ordinary identifying contexts. --ColinFine (talk) 21:02, 11 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Ah, partitive. I have become more familiar with it than most people would care to from studying Finnish. dalahäst (let's talk!) 04:29, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * Tolkien was one of Finnish's biggest fans, and he one of my biggest influences.μηδείς (talk) 04:33, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Indeed, didn't he base Quenya on Finnish? dalahäst (let's talk!) 08:20, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The phonology of Quenya was partly based on the phonology of Finnish (without umlaut vowels), just as the phonology of Sindarin was partly based on the phonology of Welsh, but without too many meaningful grammatical/morphological/lexical resemblances or borrowings... AnonMoos (talk) 17:37, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The ablaut plurals of Sindarin and the cases of Quenya seem to be strong resmeblances if not concrete borrowings. Sindarin even has (initial) consonant mutation, which is quite rare (The Celtic languages and The Nivkh language have it.) μηδείς (talk) 22:28, 7 August 2012 (UTC)

Chicago Style
Translating John Grisham's Calico Joe, I found the sentence as follows:

They(Cubs) were sinking, Chicago style, while the Mets were winning.

Cubs had led by 10 games, but the difference reduced to one after a star player was removed. What does 'Chicago style' mean? Please help. --Analphil (talk) 07:51, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The Cubs have a reputation around Chicago for doing well in the beginning of the season and then falling behind at the end of the season. There's a saying that says that "Cubs" stands for Completely Useless By September.  That's what I would take from it.  Dismas |(talk) 08:04, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * For the benefit of those who may not be aware, the Cubs have not won a World Series since 1908, and haven't even played in one since 1945. Their name is synonymous with futility on the field. --Xuxl (talk) 09:56, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * Maybe like Chicago-style pizza, into a "deep dish"? Nah, probably not.  --Trovatore (talk) 08:07, 7 August 2012 (UTC)
 * When I saw the title of this section in my watchlist, I assumed it was a question about the Chicago Manual of Style, or a convention advocated by it. Funny, heh. dalahäst (let's talk!) 08:18, 7 August 2012 (UTC)


 * The easy answer is that it means that the Chicago Cubs were doing what the Chicago Cubs always do: even if they do good, they blow it by the end of the year. Ask Leon Durham, Steve Bartman, Billy Sianis, etc.  -- Jayron  32  19:32, 7 August 2012 (UTC)