This is going to be hard because of him/his needing to be there very early

Question

I recently read the following:

This is going to be hard because of him needing to be there very early.

I would have written:

This is going to be hard because of his needing to be there very early.

What is the grammatical difference between these two sentences? Is there a sense in which one is more correct than the other or do they simply have subtly different meanings?

possible duplicate of When is a gerund supposed to be preceded by a possessive pronoun? with extra material at Subject of gerund phrase. — Edwin Ashworth, Apr 16 '15 at 15:41
@FF The POSS-ing vs ACC-ing choice, with the different emphases the choice makes available, has been covered several times. The closed-as-duplicate question covers additional ground, with the discussion of whether an ACC-ing structure is acceptable as a subject as well as as a direct or prepositional object. The questions interlink, in any case. — Edwin Ashworth, Apr 16 '15 at 16:01
"This is going to be hard because he would need to be there very early." — Hot Licks, Apr 16 '15 at 16:51

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Apr 17 '15 at 03:06

In Formal English, only the latter is permissible. Gerunds are to be "possesed" by their doers. Nowadays in most American English speech though, the former sentence is said while the latter tends to sound "stuffy" and "stilted". The first sentence seems a lot more natural to say for me.

Since you're reading a poem, and poems tend to be written in common speech (as opposed to formal writing like essays), it could be the author just using informal grammar.

This is going to be hard because of him/his needing to be there very early

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