Last week in this column we talked about some difficult possessives. This week, Bill in Williamsport, Pa., builds on that discussion with a question about a possessive issue we didn’t cover: “Joe is a ...

To avoid ”double possessives,” they argue, the phrases should be ”a friend of President Reagan,” ”a favorite of David Letterman” and ”bosom friends of his wife.” Oddly, no one has complained about ”a ...

“Which is correct,” writes Bob Fliegel of St. Augustine, Fla., “‘he is a friend of John’ or ‘he is a friend of John’s’?” The second construction — “a friend of John’s” — is an example of the “double ...

Some people will tell you that it’s fine to say “a friend of John” and that it’s also fine to say “John’s friend,” but “a friend of John’s” is another matter. “The double possessive is redundant and ...

Q: Which is correct: “He’s a friend of Bill” or “He’s a friend of Bill’s”? – Joe Summers Lawrenceville, N.J. A: If Hillary Clinton runs for president, this could become a very common question. Strict ...

Recently the Los Angeles Times wrote that legendary funnyman Jack Benny "was a particular favorite of Johnny Carson's." That caught the eye of a reader named Rod, who asked: "When the writer says that ...

If all you latent copy editors will gather round, the quiz will begin. The first question deals with punctuation in possessive constructions. Don't go away! These sentences plop upon your desk: • From ...

For those who still get puzzled by the double possessive, I’m sharing the analysis I gave an English teacher in Iran four years ago for a big problem that stumped him.