Thursday, October 04, 2007

Too insistent the possessive in English

I might have written a article of such a theme before. I always feel that about "Whose" is mentioned TOO much in English.
For example;

[They gave their teacher a big boquet of flowers for her birthday.]

Why do we need to say "their" and "her"? That's obviously her birthday. Who gives someone a birthday present for OTHER'S birthday?

[He took off his glasses.]

The glasses he wears is of course HIS glasses. Why do we need to say "his" specially? We can say it only when he wore OTHER'S glasses and took it off.

[He divorced his wife.]

It is impossible to divorce OTHER'S wife!!!

2 comments:

PA said...

You can "take off someone else's glasses".
It would be a little bit of a wierd situation though!
"Their" teacher to show whose teacher it is. "her" birthday to make clear whose birthday it is:They could be giving the flowers to her to give to her husband for his birthday.
:-)

sand said...

Hi, PA. How are you?
Thank you for your comment.
I care English possessive a bit too much so sometimes I add possessive more than necessary. Haha.