My Friend and I’s Grammar Problem: Joint Possession with Pronouns

Writers often struggle to indicate that something is possessed jointly by two people, especially if pronouns are involved. Describing, for instance, a vacation that you and your friend took together can result in such awkward phrases as “my friend and I’s vacation.” Even if this doesn’t sound quite right (and it shouldn’t), it still might be difficult to find the right words for this concept.

The correct way to do this (at least according to some usage guides) is to make both items in the pair possessive, “my friend’s and my vacation” (see Battistella), or else to rephrase, “the vacation I took with my friend.” But problems could arise if what is jointly possessed is plural, not singular. Let’s say that a couple has several bicycles. If you were to say, “My partner’s and my bicycles,” it could be unclear whether you mean that some of the bicycles are yours and some are your partner’s, or else that all the bicycles are shared between you both.

If pronouns aren’t involved, then the usual method to distinguish between joint and individual ownership in English is by using apostrophes to make either one or both of the owners possessive. “John and Erin’s bicycles” means the bicycles belonging to John and Erin together, and “John’s and Erin’s bicycles” means that some of the bicycles belong to John and some to Erin.

Because the exact nature of the ownership could be unclear in a phrase like “My partner’s and my bicycles,” it’s best to rephrase for clarity: “My bicycles are all red and my partner’s bicycles are all blue,” or “All the bicycles that my partner and I own are blue.”

Work Cited

Battistella, Edwin L. “Pronouns and Joint Possession.” OUPblog, 3 July 2022, blog.oup.com/2022/07/pronouns-and-joint-possession/.