Wedding Couple Share the Same Sister??

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy reading the wedding feature in my local newspaper. It's sort of a mini romance novel each Sunday--a column about how two people met, their engagement, their wedding, and hopefully, happily ever after.



This week's featured wedding article contained a curious sentence. The reporter was explaining how the couple met and said this:



Turns out that Tonorey and Aldrich's sister had attended the same high school in Birmingham and he remembered her photo from the yearbook.



Common sense tells me that Tonorey had a sister and Aldrich had a sister and that the TWO sisters went to the same high school. However, the grammar used by the writer does NOT say that. When you have two names with an apostrophe plus S ONLY on the second name, that means that the noun following belongs to BOTH of those people.



Notice, too, that the writer used the SINGULAR of "sister." Whoops! I am guessing that is not at all what she meant. The sentence should read this way:



Turns out that Tonorey's and Aldrich's sisters had attended the same high school, and Aldrich remembered Tonorey's photo from the yearbook.



BONUS POINT #1: Notice that I added a comma before AND in this sentence because the material that comes after AND (Aldrich remembered Tonorey's photo from the year book) is a complete clause.



BONUS POINT #2: Notice also that I changed the pronouns HE and HER to the names of the people. I did this because it is not clear from the context who HE and HER might be.



I hope this helps the next time you need to create a double possessive. I also hope Tonorey and Aldrich live happily ever after!