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I'm wondering about possessive adj/pronoun and apostrophe S in sentences where you add on additional "possessors". Could anyone give me feedback about whether the following sentences are correct, particularly the parts in bold:

  1. My parents’ ability to turn every discussion into an argument is well known, as is mine/my and my brother’s irritation with it.

I feel like the adjective MY is the logical choice, but somehow MINE sounds more natural to me. Any thoughts?

  1. We're just going over the details for our friends’, Jim and Jane's, surprise engagement party.

Is the above correct? It shouldn't be Jim's and Jane's, right? I know I could rewrite the sentence, but prefer it this way and am curious about the answer anyway.

Any thoughts would be appreciated!

tchrist
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MoniqueH
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  • In example #2, I would take out both commas and the first apostrophe, and let the last apostrophe do the work. An appositive needn't always be set off by commas. – Brian Hitchcock Nov 08 '15 at 10:13
  • In example #1, "mine" is wrong because it is initially parsed as "my ability to turn every discussion into an argument". Using "my" instead points the reader forward to the correct parsing, rather than backward to the incorrect one. – Brian Hitchcock Nov 08 '15 at 10:16
  • Thanks Brian. Based on what you wrote, is this correct: We're just going over the details for our friends Jim and Jane's surprise engagement party. – MoniqueH Nov 08 '15 at 21:02

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