English usage and grammar

365 readers

4 users here now

A community to discuss and ask questions about English usage and grammar.

If your post refers to a specific English variant, please indicate it within square brackets (for instance [Canadian]).

Online resources:

Cambridge English Dictionary
Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Thesaurus
Gilman's Webster's Dictionary of English Usage. This is a great and witty reference about usage, its history, and its controveries

Sibling communities:

!english_esl@lemmy.ml

Rules of conduct:

The usual ones on Lemmy and Mastodon.. In short: be kind or at least respectful, no offensive language, no harassment, no spam.

(Icon: entry "English" in the Oxford English Dictionary, 1933. Banner: page from Chaucer's "The Wife of Bath's Tale".)

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

pglpm@lemmy.ca

pglpm@mander.xyz

pglpm@lemmy.sdf.org

... no chance of their getting caught. (feddit.de)

submitted 7 months ago by netthier@feddit.de to c/english@lemmy.ca

6 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Hello, English is my second language. I was just reading a sentence where I got a little confused with the use of "their":

In fact, the people prone to such behavior are liable to do it even more once there's no chance of their getting caught.

I've never heard "their" in this context, only "them getting caught". Is this correct grammar?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] codapine@lemm.ee 2 points 7 months ago

Similar to "if you don't my asking" - as a native English speaker even, I used to say "if you don't mind me asking". I think the latter is even more common as the colloquial but I try to use proper grammar where I can so have adopted the former.