Which of these two constructions would be correct if John and Rob each wrote a separate report and the administrative assistant filed them both?
- The administrative assistant filed John’s and Rob’s report.
- The administrative assistant filed John and Rob’s report.
The rule about handling possessives with joint and separate ownership is pretty straightforward: In sentences describing joint ownership, only the second (or last, if we have more than two) noun or pronoun should be possessive, whereas in cases of separate ownership, both (or all) nouns or pronouns should be possessive.
In this case, then—each person having produced a separate report—the apostrophes in the first sentence are correct.
However, if you said that neither of these sentences is correct, you’re right! If each person has generated a separate report, then the word report should be plural:
- The administrative assistant filed John’s and Rob’s reports.
In a different scenario, if John and Rob had collaborated on a single report, the correct construction would be the second one:
- The administrative assistant filed John and Rob’s report.
Sometimes punctuation serves not only to enhance readability but also to convey meaning. The writer’s decision about which names to make possessive affects the reader’s interpretation of the sentence: did the assistant file two reports—one authored by John and one authored by Rob—or only one report written by both John and Rob?
(For another example of punctuation affecting the meaning of a sentence, see the post on the Oxford comma.)
Here are two additional examples followed by explanations:
- We are planning to attend Sam and Teresa’s retirement party. (One party is being held to celebrate both people’s retirement, so the party “belongs,” so to speak, to them jointly.)
- We are planning to attend the party honoring Sam’s and Teresa’s outstanding sales records. (Each of them possesses a separate, individual sales record; we have two records, not a single record jointly owned.)
- When I went to my husband’s family reunion, I finally met Joe’s and Martha’s parents. (Joe and Martha are not siblings; they do not “own” the same set of parents.)
- When I went to my husband’s family reunion, I finally met Tim and Sally’s parents. (Tim and Sally are siblings; they do “own” the same set of parents.)
And that’s how we differentiate between joint and separate ownership.
This blog features several other posts about when and how to make words possessive, so be sure to check them out, too:
- One is about making words possessive when they end in s (or in z, x, ch, or sh).
- Another addresses the difference between possessive nouns and attributive ones (or, put another way, why we have an apostrophe in Mother’s Day and Father’s Day but not in Bankers School or Veterans Day).
- We have a post explaining why we need the possessive case before a gerund.
- And last but perhaps most important, we have a post addressing the very common mistake of making words possessive when they simply need to be plural.
Have a question? Drop it in the comment section below. I love hearing from readers.
Test Yourself
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- We complained to the housekeeping service when the trash receptacles in Hal and Barb’s offices had not been emptied for three days. [They work in separate offices.]
- Small Town and Eden’s population increases in the last decade have been staggering, despite economic hardships endured by both counties.
- After the ceremony, everyone who attended Nancy’s and Tom’s wedding walked across the street to the reception.
- Susan and Richard’s proposals were outstanding, so the company has funded both of the projects for the next fiscal year.
- The seamstress had to alter both Emily and Julie’s dress before the party.
Answers
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- Hal’s and Barb’s offices
- Small Town’s and Eden’s population increases
- Nancy and Tom’s wedding
- Susan’s and Richard’s proposals
- Emily’s and Judy’s dresses
Copyright 2001 Get It Write. Revised 2023.
Excellent!
Thanks, Hannah!
If I had your clarity, I could have authored a few books by now. Thank you for these nuggets. Best.
Thank you for those kind words!
I had this problem the other day. In my sentence, one of the two possessives was a pronoun. Ex: I handed in John and my proposal this morning. (We worked on it together.)
It sounds wrong. How wrong is it? I thought about changing it to ‘ I handed in the proposal John and I worked on.’ (Is that preposition at the end ok?)
Thank you.
If you use a pronoun with a noun for joint ownership, you put the possessive pronoun last and also make the noun possessive: I handed in John’s and my proposal this morning.
This is what the ACT test wants too! It is also this way in most high school senior grammar books.
Judy, sometimes teachers have to “teach to the test,” even when the information the tests want is questionable. I certainly understand the need to help students do well on standardized tests. But I still think that “John’s and my proposal” suggests that the two jointly wrote a single proposal. “My proposal and John’s” makes clear that each wrote a separate proposal. A decade or more ago, I taught SAT prep, and I can’t tell you the number of times I found the “right” answer lacking. Unfortunately, the pay isn’t very good for test creators, and I fear the companies often cut corners when it comes to researching and hiring experts. Thanks for reading–and especially for writing!
I agree, Marie, that this construction is always difficult. I usually recast the sentence, as you have. Yes, it’s fine to end the sentence with the preposition because it has an object. If you had written separate proposals, I would have suggested “I turned in my proposal and John’s.” But you’re right: since you collaborated, it’s best simply to rewrite the sentence.