Is this grammatically correct?
July 13, 2011 4:29 PM Subscribe
This sounds odd when I say it aloud, but I think grammatically it's correct. Or is it? "My and Kelly's favorite restaurant is Valentino's." Is there a better way to say that?
Kelly's and my favorite restaurant is Valentino's.
posted by fiTs at 4:31 PM on July 13, 2011 [11 favorites]
posted by fiTs at 4:31 PM on July 13, 2011 [11 favorites]
I think it's correct. You're actually saying "My [favorite] and Kelly's favorite restaurant is Valentino's."
posted by donajo at 4:32 PM on July 13, 2011
posted by donajo at 4:32 PM on July 13, 2011
In general, the first person part comes last, so "Kelly's and my" would be correct. Here's a reference from the Chicago Manual of Style online
posted by brainmouse at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2011 [5 favorites]
posted by brainmouse at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2011 [5 favorites]
Seconding fiTs, "Kelly's and my..."
(Or, you know, the cop-out, "Kelly and I love Valentino's; it's our favorite restaurant!")
posted by mauvest at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
(Or, you know, the cop-out, "Kelly and I love Valentino's; it's our favorite restaurant!")
posted by mauvest at 4:33 PM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Here's a more on-the-nose question from that same Chicago Manual of Style online
posted by brainmouse at 4:35 PM on July 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by brainmouse at 4:35 PM on July 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
"Kelly's favourite restaurant, and mine, is Valentino's."
I also want to say "Mine and Kelly's favourite restaurant is Valentino's." but now I've typed it I'm not sure it's right either.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:35 PM on July 13, 2011
I also want to say "Mine and Kelly's favourite restaurant is Valentino's." but now I've typed it I'm not sure it's right either.
posted by A Thousand Baited Hooks at 4:35 PM on July 13, 2011
When you mention a person other than yourself, and then mention yourself, politeness in style calls for the other person to be mentioned first.
posted by Postroad at 4:47 PM on July 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
posted by Postroad at 4:47 PM on July 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
It may be rationalized as politeness, but it's just a linguistic convention.
posted by dhartung at 5:44 PM on July 13, 2011 [3 favorites]
A thousant baited hooks: the trick is to remove the other person and if the pronouns still is right, you're good. E.g.:
You wouldn't say "Mine favourite restaurant..." so you shouldn't say "Mine and Kelly's favourit restaurant..."
That being said, I'm an English teacher and yet I'm with mauvest's cop out - I avoid any situation (when writing at least) where I have to use that construction.
posted by guster4lovers at 5:46 PM on July 13, 2011 [7 favorites]
You wouldn't say "Mine favourite restaurant..." so you shouldn't say "Mine and Kelly's favourit restaurant..."
That being said, I'm an English teacher and yet I'm with mauvest's cop out - I avoid any situation (when writing at least) where I have to use that construction.
posted by guster4lovers at 5:46 PM on July 13, 2011 [7 favorites]
Wow. I can spell THOUSAND, and FAVOURITE guys. I promise.
posted by guster4lovers at 5:48 PM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
posted by guster4lovers at 5:48 PM on July 13, 2011 [1 favorite]
"Me and Kelly, our favorite restaurant is Valentino's."
That doesn't seem flawless either, but it it does follow the pattern of the origin of "'s" as a possessive: "Tom, his diner" became "Tom's diner."
posted by staggernation at 6:08 PM on July 13, 2011
That doesn't seem flawless either, but it it does follow the pattern of the origin of "'s" as a possessive: "Tom, his diner" became "Tom's diner."
posted by staggernation at 6:08 PM on July 13, 2011
The only natural-sounding option, to my native-speaker ears:
"Me and Kelly's favorite restaurant is Valentino's."
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:54 PM on July 13, 2011
"Me and Kelly's favorite restaurant is Valentino's."
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:54 PM on July 13, 2011
Oh, and "Kelly and me's favorite restaurant..." is fine too.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:55 PM on July 13, 2011
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:55 PM on July 13, 2011
Kelly and I are crazy about Valentino's.
posted by aryma at 7:56 PM on July 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
posted by aryma at 7:56 PM on July 13, 2011 [2 favorites]
Here's the trick: the 's suffix attaches to phrases, not just to words in English. The famous example is "The King of England's hat"--it's not England that owns the hat, it's the King of England. So if you want to express that Kelly and you possess something together, you coordinate "Kelly" and "I" (putting "I" second by convention), then you mark the whole phrase as possessive:
The "my and Kelly's" or "Kelly's and my" variations are also properly parallel according to the usual prescriptive rules, but I don't think they sound as natural.
posted by The Tensor at 8:04 PM on July 13, 2011
Kelly and I's favorite restaurant is Valentino'sYes, really. Say it out loud.
The "my and Kelly's" or "Kelly's and my" variations are also properly parallel according to the usual prescriptive rules, but I don't think they sound as natural.
posted by The Tensor at 8:04 PM on July 13, 2011
The favorite restaurant of both Kelly and I is Valentino's.
posted by JJ86 at 8:35 PM on July 13, 2011
posted by JJ86 at 8:35 PM on July 13, 2011
Oh, and "Kelly and me's favorite restaurant..." is fine too.
That emphatically is not fine. "Me's" is not fine!
posted by jessicapierce at 9:09 PM on July 13, 2011 [8 favorites]
That emphatically is not fine. "Me's" is not fine!
posted by jessicapierce at 9:09 PM on July 13, 2011 [8 favorites]
staggernation: That doesn't seem flawless either, but it it does follow the pattern of the origin of "'s" as a possessive: "Tom, his diner" became "Tom's diner."
This is inaccurate. The possessive 's comes from Old English, which has case endings for nouns. The genitive case expresses possession (among many other things), and a common ending for Old English nouns in the genitive case is -es, like modern German. The apostrophe originally indicated a pronunciation that left out the e. You see the same sort of thing in the case of the modern English past-tense verb ending -ed: at one time, the e was always pronounced; later, a pronunciation that omits the e became widespread, and this was indicated using an apostrophe. Even today we occasionally get both variants like blessed (which would have been written as bless'd) and blessed (with the e pronounced as a short i).
OP: If you're going by what "sounds right," there is no good way to coordinate possessive forms like that in English. Sorry. Your best bet is to rewrite the sentence.
posted by Nomyte at 9:13 PM on July 13, 2011
This is inaccurate. The possessive 's comes from Old English, which has case endings for nouns. The genitive case expresses possession (among many other things), and a common ending for Old English nouns in the genitive case is -es, like modern German. The apostrophe originally indicated a pronunciation that left out the e. You see the same sort of thing in the case of the modern English past-tense verb ending -ed: at one time, the e was always pronounced; later, a pronunciation that omits the e became widespread, and this was indicated using an apostrophe. Even today we occasionally get both variants like blessed (which would have been written as bless'd) and blessed (with the e pronounced as a short i).
OP: If you're going by what "sounds right," there is no good way to coordinate possessive forms like that in English. Sorry. Your best bet is to rewrite the sentence.
posted by Nomyte at 9:13 PM on July 13, 2011
That emphatically is not fine. "Me's" is not fine!
Me's on its own is not fine, no. But that's not what I said. I said Kelly and me's was fine. And it is.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:02 AM on July 14, 2011
Me's on its own is not fine, no. But that's not what I said. I said Kelly and me's was fine. And it is.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:02 AM on July 14, 2011
And if you're really curious as to why I assert that it's fine, this dissertation may interest you:
“Me and her” meets “he and I”: Case, person, and linear ordering in English coordinated pronouns by Thomas Grano
This is a point of English grammar that is, in fact, not simple or straightforward at all.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:17 AM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
“Me and her” meets “he and I”: Case, person, and linear ordering in English coordinated pronouns by Thomas Grano
This is a point of English grammar that is, in fact, not simple or straightforward at all.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 12:17 AM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
Me's on its own is not fine, no. But that's not what I said. I said Kelly and me's was fine. And it is.
No.
It is not.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:34 AM on July 14, 2011 [4 favorites]
No.
It is not.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:34 AM on July 14, 2011 [4 favorites]
When navigating "me and her" types of constructions, you separate the two (or more) people out into separate sentences to get the pronouns right, and then combine them back together. Doing so, you get:
My favorite restaurant...
Kelly's favorite restaurant...
So you'd end up with:
Kelly's and my favorite restaurant...
In other words, if you remove any of the people from the list, it still has to sound right.
(Me/my: Me is a direct object, my is a possessive pronoun. They are not interchangeable. "My" is already possessive, you can't add an " 's " to it. Me is a direct object, you can only use it when something is happening to yourself. You can't make a direct object possessive, afaik.
As for the linked article, I would counter that the rules are simple, but people's understanding of them is not. Language is fluid, but it only changes when a "violation" of the rules becomes acceptable. "I favorite restaurant" might be clear enough to get the point across, but it isn't correct English as the accepted rules currently are.)
posted by gjc at 6:07 AM on July 14, 2011
My favorite restaurant...
Kelly's favorite restaurant...
So you'd end up with:
Kelly's and my favorite restaurant...
In other words, if you remove any of the people from the list, it still has to sound right.
(Me/my: Me is a direct object, my is a possessive pronoun. They are not interchangeable. "My" is already possessive, you can't add an " 's " to it. Me is a direct object, you can only use it when something is happening to yourself. You can't make a direct object possessive, afaik.
As for the linked article, I would counter that the rules are simple, but people's understanding of them is not. Language is fluid, but it only changes when a "violation" of the rules becomes acceptable. "I favorite restaurant" might be clear enough to get the point across, but it isn't correct English as the accepted rules currently are.)
posted by gjc at 6:07 AM on July 14, 2011
No.
It is not.
Yes, it most certainly is.
As The Tensor already noted, the genitive marker 's in English can attach not just to nouns but also noun phrases. X and me is a noun phrase, and so English speakers as a matter of course append 's to the end of it to indicate that X and me possess something. Kelly and me's favorite restaurant is Valentino's. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's correct to the exclusion of other suggestions in this thread. But it is fine.
The following paper provides a good summary of the way various grammars describe the use of the 's marker in English:
Is the English possessive ’s truly a right edge phenomenon? by Alan Scott, David Denison & Kersti Börjars
It's not as simple as people think it is.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:42 AM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
It is not.
Yes, it most certainly is.
As The Tensor already noted, the genitive marker 's in English can attach not just to nouns but also noun phrases. X and me is a noun phrase, and so English speakers as a matter of course append 's to the end of it to indicate that X and me possess something. Kelly and me's favorite restaurant is Valentino's. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's correct to the exclusion of other suggestions in this thread. But it is fine.
The following paper provides a good summary of the way various grammars describe the use of the 's marker in English:
Is the English possessive ’s truly a right edge phenomenon? by Alan Scott, David Denison & Kersti Börjars
It's not as simple as people think it is.
posted by lefty lucky cat at 7:42 AM on July 14, 2011 [1 favorite]
The favorite restaurant of both Kelly and I me is Valentino's.
"both Kelly and me" is the object of the preposition "of" in this sentence.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:47 AM on July 14, 2011
"both Kelly and me" is the object of the preposition "of" in this sentence.
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 8:47 AM on July 14, 2011
As The Tensor already noted, the genitive marker 's in English can attach not just to nouns but also noun phrases. X and me is a noun phrase, and so English speakers as a matter of course append 's to the end of it to indicate that X and me possess something. Kelly and me's favorite restaurant is Valentino's. Just to be clear, I'm not saying that it's correct to the exclusion of other suggestions in this thread. But it is fine.
You're taking an area in which all sorts of live theories are floating around, picking one of the theories, and then claiming that because it allows a certain construction, that construction is grammatical. But "Kelly and me's" sounds infelicitous to most of us. If the infelicity is a robust piece of data, then it's a linguistic item to be explained, not denied or ignored. Seems to me that a theory that allows any NP to fill in there is not respondent to linguistic data and should be honed. Do you think "Us's favorite color is blue" is felicitous in non-creole English?
posted by painquale at 9:36 AM on July 14, 2011
You're taking an area in which all sorts of live theories are floating around, picking one of the theories, and then claiming that because it allows a certain construction, that construction is grammatical. But "Kelly and me's" sounds infelicitous to most of us. If the infelicity is a robust piece of data, then it's a linguistic item to be explained, not denied or ignored. Seems to me that a theory that allows any NP to fill in there is not respondent to linguistic data and should be honed. Do you think "Us's favorite color is blue" is felicitous in non-creole English?
posted by painquale at 9:36 AM on July 14, 2011
Maybe it is some American thing but, as a Brit, I'm cringing at several of the comments here.
As far as I'm concerned, the correct answer should be "Kelly and I's favourite restaurant is Valentino's"
posted by mr_silver at 3:59 PM on July 14, 2011
As far as I'm concerned, the correct answer should be "Kelly and I's favourite restaurant is Valentino's"
posted by mr_silver at 3:59 PM on July 14, 2011
In school I was always taught to mention the other person before mentioning myself. so
Kelly and my favorite restaurant is xxx
posted by bbyboi at 3:47 PM on July 23, 2011
Kelly and my favorite restaurant is xxx
posted by bbyboi at 3:47 PM on July 23, 2011
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posted by pompomtom at 4:30 PM on July 13, 2011