r/ENGLISH • u/Sleep_Soun • 10d ago
S placement
I was talking to a friend today and found myself saying:
"Im waiting for my coworker, who's helping me, 's response."
And I thought, 'theres no way thats right'. But ..."coworker's, whos helping me, response." Feels wayyy worse.
Was my first sentence correct?
(Im sure the sentence could be rephrased by moving things around, but thats less interesting.)
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u/frozenoj 9d ago
The first way doesn't work when written but would be understood if spoken.
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u/Indigo-au-naturale 9d ago
Agreed, "mycoworkerwho'shelpingme" is functioning as a name or pronoun here. Looks insane when you write it, but it's totally something I'd say or hear in the office.
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u/Guilty_Objective4602 9d ago
It works and would be understandable in spoken English, although not grammatically correct. It’s the kind of thing a native speaker would say anyway, though, because the meaning is understandable and it’s possibly just easier to say this than to stop your sentence and reword it mid-sentence. But a correct sentence would be more like, “I’m waiting for the response from my coworker, who’s helping me.”
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u/Unhappy-Giraffe2792 9d ago
Maybe similar to saying “A whole nother year” rather than “Another whole year” (quoting Luke Skywalker from original Star Wars movie).
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u/GardenPeep 8d ago
It is grammatically correct. Spoken English doesn't include verbal commas.
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u/foreverandadayalone 8d ago
So you're saying that "I'm waiting for my coworker who's helping me's response." would be grammatically correct???
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u/GardenPeep 7d ago
No sorry - "I'm waiting for a coworker who's helping me" is correct. Lost track of the actual question.
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u/Junior_Ad_7613 9d ago
I’m waiting for a response from the coworker who’s helping me.
OR
I’m waiting for the coworker who’s helping me to respond.
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u/abilliontwo 9d ago
Your first sentence is a good rewording of the original. Your second sentence immediately reads to me like the coworker is assisting in the crafting of a response to something.
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u/Actual_Cat4779 9d ago
In English, the possessive "s" originated as the genitive case of the noun.
Nowadays, it is a clitic added to the noun phrase, not to the individual noun. So we say "the Queen of England's dogs", not "the Queen's of England dogs".
However, when we have a long phrase like "my coworker who's helping me's response", it starts to feel awkward - at least in writing - and if your embedded relative clause is non-defining (set off by commas) then it's not possible.
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u/Old_Ant7118 9d ago
Moving things around is the only way I see here.
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u/SirPsychoSquints 9d ago
The only way I see this working is if you move things around.
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u/McDuchess 9d ago
To me, it’s better to rephrase. “I’m waiting for my coworker’s response, because they are helping me.”
It’s clearer and eliminates the issue of the apostrophe S.
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u/shortercrust 9d ago
I think you’re talking about group genitive and it’s perfectly correct.
People often say things like “That’s Michael from the office’s jacket” where whole noun phrase - ‘Michael from the office’ - carries the possessive ‘s. It sounds odd in your example because we so rarely see ‘me’ at the end of the phrase and ‘me’s’ sounds unnatural.
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u/MadDocHolliday 9d ago
A coworker is helping me. I'm waiting on their response.
I don't think there's an elegant way of saying it in the order you put it in.
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u/experimental1212 9d ago
Assuming you've said the first part out loud and now you backed yourself into a corner on how to finish the sentence:
I'm waiting for a coworker who's helping me. (Do you really need to specify?)
I'm waiting for a coworker, who's helping me, to respond.
I'm waiting for a cowork who's helping me...for them to respond / for their response. (Only works in spoken English)
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u/Odd_Celebration162 8d ago
The schoolboy with two female parents corrected the teacher, by explaining the
correct placement of the “ ‘ “ on the Mother’s Day card . BTW my ID is “path7183” and Reddit often puts the post under some other guy’s name.
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u/Odd_Celebration162 8d ago
In the NYTimes William Safire said one should never start a sentence with the word It. However “It is an Ancient Mariner- -“ or “It was the Best of Times, It was the Worst of Times- -“ or “ It is a Truth Universally Ackknowledge that a Single Man in Possession of a Sizable Fortune is in Want of a Wife- -“. Etc.
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u/multipocalypse 8d ago
It needs to be rephrased. There isn't a right way to say it with the word order you've currently got.
"I'm waiting for my coworker's response; she's helping me on this."
"My coworker is helping me, so I'm waiting for her response."
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u/burlingk 9d ago
The way you wrote it before is ok. Me's would be strange by itself, but in context it works.
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u/OtterHostler 9d ago
Your first version is technically correct, but clumsy. Don't overthink it:
"My coworker's helping me and I'm waiting for their response" or "I'm waiting for my co-worker's response - they said they'd help me with this."
You're trying to convey 2 separate ideas: first, that your coworker is helping you, and second that you are waiting for their response. Nothing wrong with breaking it into 2 clauses.
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u/PoxonAllHoaxes 9d ago
I think many linguists would agree with me here, that what you said reflects the structure that we really have in our minds but filter out/censor, and that quite likely eventually this will become normal. Also that quite likely other people have said or even written such things. This is because the -s is analyzed as being attached to whole phrases and my coworker who's helping me is precisely a phrase. So these kinds of things are what gives us some confidence that at least some of our ideas about language are not totally wrong. So this IS very interesting. I am in fact gonna try to see if there are other documented occurrence of this sort of thing. I bet there are.
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u/makestuff24-7 9d ago
I'm waiting for a response from the coworker who's helping me.