Possessives

“I’m worried about him singing with the choir.”

Possessives, Pronouns, Versus

I heard this on a BET television program.

Problem:
Many wonder whether “him” or “his” is correct in sentences such as this one.

Explanation:
The present participial phrase “singing with the choir” acts as an adjective to modify “him” in “I’m worried about him singing with the choir.” To prove this, we can remove the participial phrase and retain the sense of the sentence: “I’m worried about him.”

In contrast, if we replace “him” with “his” in the sentence, then “singing with the choir” may not be removed. That is, “I’m worried about his.” makes no sense; the possessive pronoun “his” requires the gerund phrase “singing with the choir” or another object.

Summarizing,

  • “him” makes “singing with the choir” act as a present participial phrase;
  • “his” makes “singing with the choir” act as a gerund phrase.

In other words, “him” and “his” are equally correct but have different effects.

Putting this summary in non-grammatical terms, we get the solution.

Solution:
Use “him” when you want to focus the attention on the person. Use “his” when you want to focus the attention on the action performed by the person.

“Each of us has our own style.”

Possessives, Pronouns

I heard someone say this recently.

Problem:
The number of the possessive pronoun does not match the number of the subject.

Explanation:
“Each of us” is singular (the speaker is considering “us” one at a time), so the possessive pronoun in front of “own style” should be singular.

The possessive pronoun “our” is plural and therefore does not match the number of the subject (“Each of us”).

I believe that the speaker of the statement, in ignoring the number of “Each of us” (singular) in favor of the number of “us” (plural), was distracted by the fact that “us” and “our” usually go together (are both first-person plural pronouns) and the proximity of “us” to the possessive pronoun in the statement.

“Each of us has their own style.” would be incorrect, too, because “their” is plural and also is inconsistent with the singularity of “Each of us” (the subject of the sentence).

Given that the statement refers to a group of people, the correct possessive pronouns would be the singular ones “his” and/or “her”. The mental impediment of combining “us” with “his” or “her” in a statement seems to be that “us” is in the first person whereas “his” and “her” are in the third person. One must appreciate that “Each of” in front of “us” forces the listener to consider the third-person individuals in the group.

Solutions:
“Each of us has his own style.” — for an all-male group
“Each of us has her own style.” — for an all-female group
“Each of us has his or her own style.” — for a mixed group

“Oh, for Heaven sakes!”

Apostrophes, Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler, Nouns, Possessives

I often hear people say this.

Problems:
1. A possessive apostrophe-S (‘s) is missing.
2. The noun makes much more sense in singular form.

Explanation:
Even in speech, one can hear when a possessive apostrophe-S is missing.

The English noun “sake” (not the Japanese noun) means interest, benefit, advantage, motive, purpose or cause. For example, “for the sake of Jim” means for the benefit of Jim.

We can rewrite “for the sake of Jim” (“for the benefit of Jim”) as “for Jim’s sake” (“for Jim’s benefit”). It doesn’t make a lot of sense to say “for Jim’s sakes” (plural). That would be analogous to saying “for Jim’s benefits”, which most people would not say because one vague, all-encompassing benefit is enough!

Apparently, the original expression was “Oh, for God’s sake!” This expression got softened to “Oh, for Heaven’s sake!”, which got converted into the problematic expression.

I believe that “Oh, for Heaven sakes” supports my “Devolution toward Simpler” hypothesis. It’s simpler to say “Oh, for Heaven sakes” than to say “Oh, for Heaven’s sake”; saying the latter requires one to pause between “Heaven’s” and “sake” so that the listener hears the two S sounds.

Letting the expression devolve further, we get the original, problematic expression: “Oh, for Heaven sakes!” It’s as if the speaker is indicating that he knows that an S sound belongs somewhere, so he puts it at the end of the expression, where it sounds as if it might belong.

Solution:
“Oh, for Heaven’s sake!”