I think part of the question regarding the /New Yorker/ sentences had to 
do with whether a  possessive was needed at all. It's sometimes called 
the double genitive. We would say, "He is a friend of mine," but do we 
need to say "He is a friend of John's"? (One of my textbooks said, "By 
an old and well-established idiom, sometimes called the double genitive, 
possession may be shown by two methods at the same time, by an I 
/of/-phrase and by a possessive form of the substantive."

Obviously sometimes a possessive is needed for clarity. "This is a 
picture of John" would mean that it is an image of John. "This is a 
picture of John's" would indicate that the picture, which might be of 
Mary, belongs to John.

Gerald



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