The Weltchek Weekly

I recently eavesdropped on someone talking about her upcoming nuptials.

“Zack and I’s wedding is in three weeks!” she exclaimed.

Congratulations!

But the woman’s all-too-common erroneous turn of phrase—Zack and I’s wedding—made me cringe. Zack’s and my wedding is in three weeks would have been the correct thing to say.

This is a case where two people share or own the same thing. So, for starters, the sentence needs a possessive pronoun (my, his, her, etc.), not a subject pronoun (I, you, we, etc.). Next, when you combine a pronoun and an actual name, the person being referred to by name (in this case, Zack) always goes first and takes the ‘s. Then comes the pronoun (in this case my—never with an ’s).

And that’s how you get the very correct, Zack’s and my wedding is in three weeks.

In other (verbally challenged) relationship news, Lena Dunham’s new husband recently told a New York Times reporter, “Both me and Lena’s parents are still together.”

He should have said, Both Lena’s and my parents are still together.

He did acknowledge what a good example they are—for Lena and for him.

Congratulations to the parents!