this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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What native English speaker can possibly think that "my wife and I's" is correct?
People who had bad teachers and learn it's always "friend and I", or that's all they remember.
But I don't get how they don't know it's wrong when it just sounds so wrong.
The grammar Nazis will hate me for this but I'm going with "A friend of mine and my wife's" as the least horrible way of saying it.
"A friend of mine booked a table..." - all good
"A friend of my wife's booked a table..." - yep - and check here if you don't like "wife's": https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/a-friend-of-his-wifes.2438592/
"A friend of my wife's and mine booked a table..." - nope
"A friend of mine and my wife's booked a table..." - works for me
Wait, what is the correct way to write this? "my wife and my friend booked a table" makes it sound like the wife was also involved in booking the table, whereas the original made it clear that just the friend booked the table.
I'd go with "My wife's and my friend" but I'm no expert.
I like that, but I still find the original, "wrong" form more charming and, dare I say, elegant.
I get that it's not right, and I'm usually irked a bit by incorrect grammar, but in this case it seems to me to be the simplest way to convey the idea, and it flows quite nicely too. For me there's less resistance when reading "my wife and I's friend"; no slow down, no double take, which is not something I can say of the alternatives.
I think we should just pretend that it's correct until it is; you can do that with language, you know.
Some comments here seem incredulous that someone wouldn't know it was wrong. Maybe they did know and it just didn't seem important enough to care. Especially if the "correct" form is worse!
Thanks for coming to my TED talk.
Maybe 'A friend of my wife and I'?
Maybe the "friend" is an apple products
My wife and I have a friend who booked a table"