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I am wondering about the "double possessive" I have been reading about.

I have a couple of sentences as an example:

He’s a new client of Jane and Kevin’s and a close childhood friend of Steven O’Neill’s.

I thought that the above sentence was correct, because it sounds natural to use the apostrophe S to me, in the same way that we say "he's a friend of mine."

However, I have heard people criticize sentences such as that one above as having a "double possessive" because of the OF as well as the apostrophe S.

Is the above sentence correct or should it be:

He’s a new client of Jane and Kevin and a close childhood friend of Steven O’Neill.

Thank you - any help would be greatly appreciated.

MoniqueH
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1 Answers1

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It's a shortened version of "A friend of Steven's friends". That is, one of the set of people who are friends of Steven.

David Garner
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