How to write "my and my friend's" to refer to same object ("my and my friend's toys")

Question

How would I best phrase "my and my friend's toys"? The sentence in mind is quite descriptive of the toys and I would thus not like to repeat the adjectives twice (ex. "my bright, colorful toys and my friend's bright, colorful toys") if possible.

Full sentence and preceding sentence:

I don't remember many of my toys. My and my friend's bright, colorful toys were frequently used as bargaining tools within familial environments, trying to encourage us to learn better ways to align our actions with their desires, to rare success.

"The bright, colourful toys belonging to me and my friend..." — Kate Bunting, Feb 02 '23 at 08:50
Have a look at this question and search using the tags because I'm sure there are others. — Stuart F, Feb 02 '23 at 08:50
Nice question! It's not 'wrong' as you have written it but, to avoid the close repitition of 'my', you might prefer to say "...my friend's and my bright, colorful toys were frequently used..." — Dan, Feb 02 '23 at 12:54
No, it's not wrong, but it's clumsy and destroys parallel structures, so it's avoided. Use my friend and I early and then use our as the possessive later. — John Lawler, Feb 02 '23 at 17:59

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 02 '23 at 05:23

1

You could write the following:

Our toys

The toys belonging to both of us

Our shared toys

The toys we both possess

The toys that belong to both of us

answered Feb 02 '23 at 05:23

ethancodes6969

11

I don't think this works. I've added a sample of the sentences in question. I haven't introduced who the "our" refers to before this. – kywl Feb 02 '23 at 06:01

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 02 '23 at 06:29

Given the example, rewriting the sentence works better as "I don't remember many of my toys. My friend and I each frequently used our bright, colourful toys as bargaining tools". The word "each" would be important to suggest they were not shared toys (although it possibly could still be misunderstood).

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 02 '23 at 16:14

0

"My and my friend's shared collection of bright and colorful toys" or "Our joint collection of bright and colorful toys" could be used to describe the toys belonging to both you and your friend without repeating the adjectives.

answered Feb 02 '23 at 16:14

iGeni

1

How to write "my and my friend's" to refer to same object ("my and my friend's toys")

3 Answers3