--- Greg Morrow <dr.elmo at whiterose.org> wrote: > Philip Hart wondered aloud to the group: > >) - last night I had to break it to some otherwise very fluent friends > >that "a colleague of us" isn't English. Why is "ours" necessary here? > > "of X" is here used in a possessive sense and hence X takes the > possessive > case--it's not just "of ours", it's "of mine", "of yours", and "of > Joe's". However, "a colleague of Joe" is also correct. (It might sound better with the last name--"a colleague of Joe Shmo".) [snip interesting stuff] Jerry Friedman __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Small Business $15K Web Design Giveaway http://promotions.yahoo.com/design_giveaway/