Lack of possessive marker when taken from a group

Question

I'm confused by this sentence:

One of my best friends band is playing tonight.

What is it that happens here, is the possessive marker completely dropped?

From what I understand:

I can't add an 's since "one of" refers to the group of friends
I can't add s' (friends') since the band is only one person's band.

Easily fixed by My best friend's band if you are not tied to the unfixable structure you created, and you don't worry that someone may suspect you have no other best friends. — Yosef Baskin, Dec 14 '20 at 16:47
Thanks for the reply! I see that I can fix it, I'm more interested in if this can be the correct way to say it in its current form, and if so, why. — spydon, Dec 14 '20 at 16:50
Does this answer your question? "The queen of England's crown" or "The queen's of England crown"? and previously mentioned at 'My wife and I's seafood collaboration dinner'? — Edwin Ashworth, Dec 14 '20 at 17:06
@EdwinAshworth I don't think so, since none of them involves a group? — spydon, Dec 14 '20 at 17:11
@EdwinAshworth or from the first one, does it mean that I can write: "One of my best friends' band is playing tonight" ? — spydon, Dec 14 '20 at 17:15
"Easily fixed" means something needs fixing, because it's not correct the way it is. — Yosef Baskin, Dec 14 '20 at 18:41
Yes. ''The Queen of England's crown'' = ''The crown of the Queen of England''. ''One of my best friends' band'' = ''The band of one of my best friends''. — Edwin Ashworth, Dec 14 '20 at 19:46
@EdwinAshworth alright, if you put that as an answer I'll put it as the accepted one. — spydon, Dec 14 '20 at 20:15
But we don't want a duplicate of an earlier question. It just adds bloat and makes searches harder. — Edwin Ashworth, Dec 15 '20 at 16:18

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 14 '20 at 18:01

0

English is fairly malleable, but it is still possible to paint yourself into a corner. One area this crops up is where a writer tries to make a word function in incompatible ways - such as being singular and plural simultaneously.

What’s happening in your example is that the “s” in “friends” can’t be coerced to do double duty to mark a plural (my friends) as well as a singular (one friend’s band).

There are several ways around this, one of which is to use a different syntax for the genitive / possessive: “the band of one of my friends ...”.

answered Dec 14 '20 at 18:01

Lawrence

38,640

Thank you! That makes sense. – spydon Dec 14 '20 at 19:39
''One of my best friends' band'' is as acceptable as ''the Queen of England's crown''. The whole NP (or whatever) is treated as if it were a noun. "The boy in the glasses' laptop". – Edwin Ashworth Dec 14 '20 at 19:47
@EdwinAshworth There is no singular/plural tension in your example. – Lawrence Dec 15 '20 at 01:28
''One of my best friends' band'' = ''The band of one of my best friends''. "The Lord of the Isles' family crest". The apostrophe (where pronunciation requires it with an s) goes after the NP. 'Singular/plural tension' doesn't arise. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 15 '20 at 16:25
@EdwinAshworth Yes, I guess you can argue that numerical agreement is already determined by the head noun, so the apostrophe convention becomes less important. – Lawrence Dec 16 '20 at 05:31
Logic? In English? It's just one area I've never seen an alternative claim about. Of course, if/where clarity becomes an issue, I'd always rephrase (or, until a Grammar/Punctuation ... Czar crowns themself and uses force to get compliance use something non-standard) if I couldn't see another way round a problem [without writing an essay]. – Edwin Ashworth Dec 16 '20 at 11:18

Lack of possessive marker when taken from a group

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