4

What is the difference between saying "a friend of mine once gave me a gift", and "my friend once gave me a gift".

If there even is a difference of course.

KaareZ
  • 143
  • 2
    "a friend of mine" leaves the identify of the friend ambiguous where "my friend" might infer that the listener is aware of the identity of the friend. – Kristina Lopez Sep 28 '15 at 14:41
  • 3
    @KristinaLopez Personally, I wouldn't expect to know the person if someone said "my friend gave me a gift" — if I knew the person, I'd expect them to say, e.g., "John gave me a gift". – anotherdave Sep 28 '15 at 15:12
  • @anotherdave: Note that Kristina did not say that the listener is acquainted with the friend in question, but can be aware that this is some particular friend which they has other reasons to know something about. – Joce Sep 28 '15 at 17:03
  • @Joce, sure, I know the distinction that you're making — though I still think I'd expect the same if I knew of your friend John – anotherdave Sep 28 '15 at 17:12
  • As a native speaker, I would not use "my friend gave me a gift" unless I was intending to identify the friend, as Rathony stated, or if by "my friend", I was inferring a closer relationship which is used sometimes as a euphemism for a romantic partner. – Kristina Lopez Sep 28 '15 at 18:24

2 Answers2

0

"A friend of mine" has the same meaning of "one of my friends" who belongs to a group of friends who all can give you a gift.

It is more commonly used as you don't have to tell who gave it to you and the important fact is you received it from someone rather than you received it from whom.

My friend is much less used unless it is used with a name follwing my friend.

example) My friend, George, gave me a gift.

  • Here's an Ngram that shows that my friend is ten times more frequent than a friend of mine. If you click on the examples, you'll see that a vast majority of these don't have a following name mentioned. – Araucaria - Him Sep 28 '15 at 17:03
  • 1
    @Araucaria you should not rely on it because my friend is more widely used when (1) calling somebody (my friend), (2) introduce your friend (he/she is my friend), (3) pointing to your friend (he is my friend), etc. Those situations are completely different from the one OP is inquiring about. You cannnot tell it from Ngram. –  Sep 28 '15 at 17:09
  • 1
    What I can rely on is that you're presenting your personal intuition about the relative frequencies as a fact. And my intuition is that your intuition is wrong and that therefore your post is factually misleading. I have presented some circumstantial evidence. Do you have any evidence to support your random idea at all? – Araucaria - Him Sep 28 '15 at 20:19
  • @Araucaria What is your problem? Did you read the comments above? People have different intuition and preferences in their ways of speaking and understanding. What you presented is nothing but numbers which are baseless and unsubstantiated.As you cannot compare which is used more often in the exact circumstances (a friend giving a friend a gift), you can never tell. Hope your intuition helps you understand this simple fact. Otherwise, don't mention your intuition. –  Sep 29 '15 at 02:36
  • Look I don't mean to upset you, but I don't think you get what this site's about. It's not really a forum for people to post answers presenting their random guesses about English as facts.. – Araucaria - Him Sep 29 '15 at 09:11
  • @Araucaria I don't think my answer is more random than your numbers you provied with the link. You still don't seem to understand what I meant by it cannot be substantiated. Let's move on. Apparently, the OP liked it. –  Sep 29 '15 at 09:28
  • @Araucaria Did you read the commet by Kristina Lopez? Just in case, As a native speaker, I would not use "my friend gave me a gift" unless I was intending to identify the friend, as Rathony stated, or if by "my friend", I was inferring a closer relationship which is used sometimes as a euphemism for a romantic partner. –  Sep 29 '15 at 09:29
  • Yes, I read Kristina's comment. Notice that she basically gave an opinion about her own usage, presented as her own preference, not as a fact about what native speakers in general do. The context of the sentence, as she points out will make a difference to what is used. As a native speaker myself, if chatting to my friends, I'd be just as likely to just use "my friend" - I suspect. But then that's just my guess. Notice that both Kristina and I presented our opinions about ourselves as just that. But yes, let's move on. – Araucaria - Him Sep 29 '15 at 10:16
  • @araucaria You exactly pointed what your misunderstanding about the link was. You would say "my friend" when you are chatting to your friend. Not in "receiving a gift from one of your friends" situation. And the link's big number for "my friend" has millions of such situations. I also use "my friend" a lot. Maybe more than you do. But what I am saying is that situatjion is particular. –  Sep 29 '15 at 10:36
  • I don't have any misunderstanding about the link. It was just an attempt to get you to provide some evidence for your very strong claims, which I feel you just made up off the top of your head. – Araucaria - Him Sep 29 '15 at 11:15
  • @Araucaria You are very persistent. Why don't you post an answer with your link youself, then? And let's move on. I would like to suggest a poll on this, though. –  Sep 29 '15 at 11:19
-1

I don't think there's a difference.

They always use "A friend of mine" instead of "A friend of my friends" because "friend" was used two times.

"A friend of mine" or "My friend" is also fine.

dnvThai
  • 19