Anita is Neil's wife. Neil is one of my friends. Now, how do I refer to Anita? Think that I'm telling someone who does not know the couple.
One of my friend's wife
OR
One of my friends' wife
I know the structure one of [something] takes a plural but then, here it is about possession of a singular which should be made plural–> "….friends' wife?" .
This is interesting. Suppose Neil has many wives. How do I again refer to Anita?
One of my friend's wives?
OR
One of my friends' wives?
Best Answer
The unambiguous way to say this in English is, "the wife of one of my friends".
If you are talking about one friend with multiple wives, you could say "one of my friend's wives".
If you have many friends, each of whom has one wife, you could say "one of my friends' wives". There are many wives, one for each friend, so you must use the plural "wives". Yes, the sentence is then ambiguous, whether each friend has one wife or many.
I understand wanting to say "one of my friends' wife", meaning -- "(one of my friends') wife", that is, you have many friends, each has one wife, and you are talking about the one wife of one friend. But that's just not how we say it in English. It's perfectly logical, but not what we say.