From: Jerry Friedman <jerry_friedman at yahoo.com> >--- 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".) No it's not. Ew. -- David Goldfarb <*>|"Get your mind out of the gutter -- you're blocking goldfarb at ocf.berkeley.edu | my snorkel." goldfarb at csua.berkeley.edu | -- Frank Ney, on rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated