# Today's <my> phone-clicks



## Lun-14

Hi
A friend of mine posted her pictures on Facebook with a caption:
_Today's my phone clicks_

I think it's incorrect. It should be: _My today's phone clicks / Today's phone clicks of mine
_
I wonder how I can explain grammatically why my friend's caption is incorrect.

Could you enlighten me regarding this?

Thanks a lot


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## Language Hound

I don't understand what either one is supposed to mean.
Please explain.

Are "clicks" supposed to be "pix" (an informal way of saying "pictures," especially photographs)?


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## Lun-14

Yes, LH; you've got it right - "clicks" means the pics/photos. "Phone clicks" means the photos taken _using_ a phone.


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## Glenfarclas

Lun-14 said:


> A friend of mine posted her pictures on Facebook with a caption:
> _Today's my phone clicks_
> 
> I think it's incorrect. It should be: _My today's phone clicks / Today's phone clicks of mine_



None of those options is grammatical or makes sense, unfortunately.  It is impossible to use two possessives -- _today's_ and _my _-- together like this. I think what your friend meant to write was something like "My phone pictures from today" or "Today's pictures from my phone."



Lun-14 said:


> "Phone clicks" means the photos taken _using_ a phone.



Perhaps "click" is used for that purpose in Indian English, but it isn't in British or American English.


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## Lun-14

Let me clarify what my friend actually meant:
_The selfies of me that I took today using my phone_.


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## Barque

Lun-14 said:


> The selfies of me that I took today using my phone.


The verb "click" is commonly used here in India to refer to _taking_ a photograph (from the sound made by earlier cameras that used film) but it's rare to hear it used as a noun. And even as a noun, it just means photos, not specifically selfies.

In any case, the original sentence doesn't make sense, as others have said. I didn't realise what was meant till I read the reference to pictures in the OP.



Lun-14 said:


> The selfies of me that I took today


They can hardly be selfies of anyone else if she took them.


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## velisarius

Just noting that the OP phrase is so unnatural that I read it as _*Today is* my phone clicks, _and could make no sense of it until an explanation was offered.


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## Hermione Golightly

I suggest "Today's selfies".


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## Lun-14

velisarius said:


> Just noting that the OP phrase is so unnatural that I read it as _*Today is* my phone clicks, _and could make no sense of it until an explanation was offered.



Hi velisarius
What's wrong with these _grammatically_?
_
Today's my phone clicks
My today's phone clicks
Today's phone clicks of me

_


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## velisarius

_Today's my phone clicks
My today's phone clicks_



Glenfarclas said:


> It is impossible to use two possessives -- _today's_ and _my _-- together like this.



_Today's phone-clicks of me  _(The hyphen is necessary, to prevent anyone misreading "clicks" as a verb.)
If there were such a thing as a "phone-click", by analogy with a "video clip", this would be OK.  But there isn't, so it isn't.


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## Lun-14

velisarius said:


> _Today's my phone-clicks
> My today's phone-clicks_



Thanks a lot.

_*Dan's and my *cat_ _chased their dog.
*Bill's and my *cat ate dog food._

[Compound Possessive Pronoun & Noun]

I've just read this. The above examples are using two possessives together.
Please clarify _when_ the possessives can be used together and _when_ they can't.

Thanks.


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## Barque

Those examples are different because they use posessives in relation to two different people.

"My today's photos" might work as an informal phrase. I'd avoid "clicks".


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## Hermione Golightly

I doubt you would write 'My Bill's cat', or 'my and today's selfies'.


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## Glenfarclas

Barque said:


> "My today's photos" might work as an informal phrase.



I don't believe that it would.  In fact, I don't think that I've ever seen such a double possessive in any context, ever.


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## Sparky Malarky

Glenfarclas said:


> I don't believe that it would.  In fact, I don't think that I've ever seen such a double possessive in any context, ever.



I agree.  The only way a "double possessive" would work would be if one thing belongs to the second thing.  
*
This is Judy's Mary's kitten. * (This kitten belongs to Mary, who is the daughter of (belongs to) Judy.)  Even then it's very awkward at best.

The "phone clicks" are either mine, or they are today's.  They can't be both. If you want to say both things, you need another clause.

*These are my phone clicks from today.  These are today's phone clicks that I took.*

I have never heard "phone clicks" before, but if it is a term that is well understood by your circle of friends there's no reason you shouldn't use it.


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## Glenfarclas

Sparky Malarky said:


> I agree. The only way a "double possessive" would work would be if one thing belongs to the second thing.
> *
> This is Judy's Mary's kitten. * (This kitten belongs to Mary, who is the daughter of (belongs to) Judy.) Even then it's very awkward at best.



I was thinking, "This is Crohn's disease's worst symptom" or "This is the King's Arms' list of beers." 



Sparky Malarky said:


> I have never heard "phone clicks" before, but if it is a term that is well understood by your circle of friends there's no reason you shouldn't use it.



Barque, above, indicates that "clicks" would not be used even in India.


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## Sparky Malarky

Glenfarclas said:


> I was thinking, "This is Crohn's disease's worst symptom" or "This is the King's Arms' list of beers."
> 
> Better examples!
> 
> Barque, above, indicates that "clicks" would not be used even in India.



Okay, but it doesn't matter.  If no one outside of her family uses a bit of slang, it's still fine to use the slang inside the family.  If her friends call them "phone clicks," then it works.


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## Barque

Glenfarclas said:


> I don't believe that it would.





Sparky Malarky said:


> I agree. The only way a "double possessive" would work would be if one thing belongs to the second thing.


To clarify, I didn't mean it's grammatical. That's why I said "informal". You find such constructions in casual speech sometimes.


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## Glenfarclas

Barque said:


> That's why I said "informal". You find such constructions in casual speech sometimes.



I have never, ever heard such a construction even in the most casual or uneducated speech.  I doubt if Sparky has, either.


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## Hermione Golightly

> I have never, ever heard such a construction even in the most casual or uneducated speech. I doubt if Sparky has, either.


Nor have I, not in dialects, or even from small children and learners, students and the many foreigners I have encountered in my travels.
I can see why a person might think it can be done.


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## Packard

In the USA I would expect:

"Today's pics"
"Today's photos"
"Today's phone pics"
"Today's phone photos".


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## se16teddy

I think the underlying rule is that no noun may have more than one *determiner*. Determiner - Wikipedia

For this purpose, a possessive such as _today's _counts as a determiner.


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## Barque

Again, I'm not justifying it. Just saying it's possible. A couple of the results Google threw up:
Where's my today's review?
My today's breakfast at Haney's looked like this! - Picture of Vern Haney's Restaurant, Center Line - TripAdvisor
One from the UK, one from the US. The one from the UK's probably a native speaker, from his name.


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## Packard

Once my mind got wrapped around the concept the examples got easier.

New York's employees' unions...

University's students' dormitories...

Dog's owner's automobile...


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## kentix

_My phone clicks from today_

That works for me. The rest don't. (Assuming the target audience understands "clicks".)


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## velisarius

Barque said:


> Again, I'm not justifying it. Just saying it's possible. A couple of the results Google threw up:
> Where's my today's review?
> My today's breakfast at Haney's looked like this! - Picture of Vern Haney's Restaurant, Center Line - TripAdvisor
> One from the UK, one from the US. The one from the UK's probably a native speaker, from his name.



Is "My today's selfies" much different from "their last week's drinking" (their drinking last week)?

_Saving face? survey respondents who claim *their last week's drinking* was atypical☆_
http://www.drugandalcoholdependence.com/article/0376-8716(81)90098-3/pdf?cc=y=

This one seems to have been written by a native speaker too:
_But what these people fail to grasp is that, by putting* their today's happiness *on hold until tomorrow, come tomorrow when *their today's problems* are resolved, ..._
Panic Attacks
I think these errors from native speakers are more common in print than we think.

This one is from a book that has pretensions to being a scholarly work:

_What fun it would be to sort all of *his today's sixteenth generation Y-DNA Haplogroups*, if only the living male descendants would provide a simple mouth swab.
Sir Robert Bell and His Early Virginia Colony Descendants_


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## Loob

velisarius said:


> I think these errors from native speakers are more common in print than we think.


I agree - except that I wouldn't call them errors.

Like Barque, I'd see them as informal usage.


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## Glenfarclas

Oh no, they're all mistakes or ineffectual ways of trying to refer to a concept like "my today" and then make it possessive.



velisarius said:


> This one is from a book that has pretensions to being a scholarly work:



"Pretensions" is a kind way of putting it.  The sentence prior to the one you quoted reads, "Our Sir Robert Bell descendants [sic] number over ten-thousand [sic]."


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## london calling

Barque said:


> "My today's photos" might work as an informal phrase. I'd avoid "clicks".


I'd avoid 'clicks' too, but 'My today's selfies' would sound odd to me even in an informal situation, regardless of whether or not some native speakers have used similar phrasing.


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## Loob

Glenfarclas said:


> ... ineffectual ways of trying to refer to a concept like "my today" and then make it possessive.


No, I'd say it's the other way round: you start with "today's jobs" (for example) and then add "my".

I'm not recommending this construction to learners of English as a second language. But people _do_ use it; I think I've probably done so myself.


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## se16teddy

Barque said:


> Where's my today's review?
> My today's breakfast at Haney's looked like this! - Picture of Vern Haney's Restaurant,


These are possible if the writer though of _today's review _as a single compound noun like _newspaper review _and if the writer thought of _today's breakfast _as a single compound noun like _full English_.


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## Lun-14

Barque said:


> Those examples are different because they use posessives in relation to two different people.



Please explain, by giving an example, what point you're trying to make here and how the examples in post#11 are different from mine in post#1.
Thanks!


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## Lun-14

Sparky Malarky said:


> The "phone clicks" are either mine, or they are today's. They can't be both.



Hi SP,
The "phone clicks" _sure_ are mine *and* they _sure_ are today's. Why can't they be both??
Please explain a bit what you're trying to say. Thanks!


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## Lun-14

I'm still not sure what the _real_ problem is in this thread...
Does the problem lie in the possessive "today's"?
Does the problem lie in "My today's"?
Does the problem lie in "Today's my"?
If it's with all, what should be the solutions?
Thanks.


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## Barque

Lun-14 said:


> Please explain, by giving an example, what point you're trying to make here


I don't know what "example" of my point you want. Your post 11 referred to "Dan's and my cat" and "Bill's and my cat". "Dan" and "my" refer to two different people. So do "Bill" and "my". Your OP refers to one person - the speaker. That's why I said your post 11 refers to different examples.


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## siares

velisarius said:


> their today's happiness


I wonder whether 'today's' may not be seen as an adjective here?
Examples in another thread were _my other car, my 30 pieces of silver_, where the second word is an adjective.
_My today's good deed beats (the) yesterday's/Bill's. _


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## Edinburgher

Lun-14 said:


> The "phone clicks" _sure_ are mine *and* they _sure_ are today's. Why can't they be both??


They can be both in real life, but in language, you should not use more than one determiner per noun.


Lun-14 said:


> I'm still not sure what the _real_ problem is


The problem lies in combining the two possessives.  You should only use one, and form the other using something like "of" or "from".  This was explained in #4.


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## kentix

_


Edinburgher said:



			The problem lies in combining the two possessives. You should only use one, and form the other using something like "of" or "from". This was explained in #4.
		
Click to expand...

*My* phone clicks *from* today.

(Not as good: Today's clicks from my phone.)_


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## london calling

siares said:


> I wonder whether 'today's' may not be seen as an adjective here?
> Examples in another thread were _my other car, my 30 pieces of silver_, where the second word is an adjective.
> _My today's good deed beats (the) yesterday's/Bill's. _


I can see what you're getting at and I agree, but my problem is with the possessive adjective + today's (My today's selfies), which sounds very odd to me. I also think that 'phone clicks' should be avoided completely if we are not speaking Indian English as it would not be understood by native speakers of other brands of English.

That said, 'My selfies of today' sounds fine to me and is what I would have written as a caption for Lun's friend's photos, as does 'today's' minus the possessive adjective, e.g. 'Here's today's news, coming to you directly from our studio in London'.


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## siares

london calling said:


> possessive adjective + today's y(My today's selfies), which sounds very odd to me.


Thank you, london calling. The sounding odd argument trumps any grammatical-non-grammatical argument, (we have plenty of Czechisms which are ungrammatical but the Slovak equivalent sounds made up - in fact it is, by the Slovak Academy). I want to check what way it sounds odd, do you mean careless native-odd or non-native? In my example?
Thank you.


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## kentix

_My today's good deed beats yesterday's._

This might be all right if you show you mean you're using a set phrase.
_
My "today's good deed" beats yesterday's.
_
However, there is already a phrase for that which doesn't use an 's and fits perfectly.

_My good deed for the day beats yesterday's_.

There is nothing awkward or potentially awkward about this sentence at all. Along with "my", it uses "for" to show possession, as Edinburgher recommended.



Edinburgher said:


> The problem lies in combining the two possessives. You should only use one, and form the other using something like "of" or "from".


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## PaulQ

Lun-14 said:


> Does the problem lie in the possessive "today's"?
> Does the problem lie in "My today's"?


 Yes.


> Does the problem lie in "Today's my"?


Yes. My and today's are both possessive adjectives.
You can say
"My pictures"
or
"Today's pictures"
but *not*
"My today's pictures"

but as Barque and velisaurius have both said, this is the same mistake as saying, "This is my your bike." or "This is today's yesterday's newspaper." Neither make sense.

To express two possessives, two clauses are needed.

"These are today's pictures and my pictures." -> however, this would hardly be idiomatic, so you need a possessive (my) and a relative clause:
"These are my pictures that I took today."


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## Lun-14

Edinburgher said:


> you should not use more than one determiner per noun.



Hi EB. Could you give me some examples for this wrong usage so I can be careful next time, please?


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## velisarius

PaulQ said:


> but as Barque and velisaurius have both said, this is the same mistake as saying, "This is my your bike." or "This is today's yesterday's newspaper." Neither make sense.



I don't think I did say that. "This is today's yesterday's newspaper" makes some kind of sense.

What I failed to mention is that "This is my today's selfie is not such a grave mistake as "This is today's my selfie". That's because I can understand the meaning of the first, and I found similar sentences being (mis)used by  native speakers.


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## Edinburgher

Lun-14 said:


> Could you give me some examples for this wrong usage so I can be careful next time, please?


I think we've had plenty of examples in this thread already.  The simplest form of advice is to avoid combining possessives or other determiners, except where it's clear that they don't apply to the same noun.
For example, "my sister's car" is OK because "my" applies to "sister", not to "car".


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## siares

Thank you, kentix.
I think I realised what is the discrepancy, it is that (I think) _my Thursday lecture was a great success_ sounds fine 
and substituting for Thursday 'today' or 'yesterday' in the same position seems natural; except 'today lecture' is not seen.


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## heypresto

siares said:


> except 'today lecture' is not seen.



Neither is 'yesterday lecture'.


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