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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