(no subject)

[arethinn]

May-the-Fourth-be-with-us is our (enotsola and me's* my) wedding anniversary.

So, yeah.

Woo for the_misha being qualified at the time to sign the fancy silly papers the gub'mint wants, because he was able to give us the "ooga booga, I wave my stick, you are married" kind of ceremony we wanted. No fancy preparations involved (although as I recall, my mother forced a bouquet into my hand, and I dyed my hair for the occasion).

This is whatcha get when you've been "together" for nine and engaged for seven years before you actually get married, I guess.

Like, whatever. I had delicious scallops and he had delicious swordfish today as an anniversary dinner. That's the important part. Right?

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* I've never liked that construction; but is "___ and I's" or "___'s and mine" any better?... this is one of the few situations in English where I really have no idea what is right, or even commonly prescribed. AAA RAVENCLAW NEEDS SOLID GUIDANCE

Comments

[digitalsidhe]

"Enotsola's and my anniversary".

Easy rule for when you're doing a compound possessive: Lop off the first one. Imagine it were just a singular object. "Someone sent a letter to Enotsola and..." is it "I", "me", or "myself"? Well, if you didn't have Enotsola in there, it would be "...sent a letter to me." So, "...sent a letter to Enotsola and me."

By the same token, "This is my anniversary" becomes "Eontsola's and my anniversary". Not "...and my's anniversary"; just plain "my" is a possessive, to match "Eontsola's".

I'd have posted this with an icon of myself wearing my Ravenclaw tie, but I don't have one. Yet. Imagine the tie is hidden behind the book.

[arethinn]

That's usually the rule I follow - what is immediately before the verb is what you need to agree with - but it seemed to come out wrong here... since "my" is adjectival and not a noun. (I guess? dang. I feel like I should concretely know and that being a bit drunk right now and therefore not knowing is a major moral failing.)

[digitalsidhe]

Well, "Eontsola's anniversary" and "my anniversary" would be parallel constructions... but you wouldn't want to say, "...is Enotsola's wedding anniversary and my wedding anniversary", because that makes it sound like there were two different weddings that just happened to occur on the same day (i.e., you're each married to other people). So again, I feel like "Enotsola's and my wedding anniversary" works.

Or go with "Enotsola's-and-my wedding anniversary", if that works better for you.

By the way, I didn't notice the tags on this entry until now. I think "oh yeah i'm married to this dude right" is hilarious!

[arethinn]

Someone else left me a longish comment on LJ explaining why "my" without a second possessive 's was correct, which I probably would have been able to figure out had I not been drunk when I wrote this post. :P

[feyandstrange]

Mmm scallops! And congratulations!

[arethinn]

Mmm the Fish Market, indeed. :)

[niya]

Yay! Congratulations~

[arethinn]

:)

[lupagreenwolf.livejournal.com]

Happy anniversary!

[arethinn]

Grazie!

[coyotegoth.livejournal.com]

_____'s and my? Any way you slice it, congratulations!

[blamebrampton.livejournal.com]

Happy anniversary!

The pronoun should be the same as what it would be if there were only one person in the sentence, or what you would use in the nearest equivalent sentence if you rewrote it as a singular action.

So: 'Bob and my wedding anniversary', 'Bill and I went to the cinema', 'between you and me' (because you would say 'beside me').

You don't need to keep the possessive apostrophe-s in the first example, because 'my' is possessive in itself, and in this specific case, you and Bob by definition will be sharing the anniversary. However, as a general rule, if the second person in the list is a pronoun, the first takes a possessive: 'Pete's and my dog has distemper'. The reason for this is that otherwise you will end up saying 'Pete and my dog has distemper', which sounds a. crazy and b. very bad for Pete . Generally, when you have a list of nouns, the last takes the possessive, as in 'Greg and Tim's party', 'Bill, Bob and Clair's house'.

You only need multiple possessives if there are multiple things for the people in the sentence. So if you and Bob aren't married, but friends who had weddings on consecutive weekends, you'd write: 'April contains Bob's and my anniversaries.' Similarly, 'It was a great progressive dinner, we went to Bill's, Bob's and Clair's houses.'

These are two of the commonest things I correct in editing professional journalists, so don't worry about being confused -- so many people get it all wrong that it's practically impossible to remember what's right unless it's your job!