Of is not always equivalent to the ('s),
+Explanation+.—The president's reception means the reception given by the president, but the reception of the president means the reception given to the president.
+Direction+.—Construct sentences illustrating the meaning of the following expressions:—
A mother's love, the love of a mother; a father's care, the care of a father; my friend's picture, a picture of my friend.
+Caution+.—Often ambiguity may be prevented by changing the assumed subject of a participle from a nominative or an objective to a possessive.
+Direction+.—Correct these errors:—
1. The writer being a scholar is not doubted.
+Correction+.—This is ambiguous, as it may mean either that the writer is not doubted because he is a scholar, or that the writer's scholarship is not doubted. It should be, The writer's being [Footnote: The participle may be modified not only, as here, by a noun in the possessive but by the articles a and the—-as said in Lesson 37. Whether it be the imposing a tax or the issuing a paper currency.—Bagehot. Not a making war on them, not a leaving them out of mind, but the putting a new construction upon them, the taking them from under the old conventional point of view.—Matthew Arnold. Poltroonery is the acknowledging an infirmity to be incurable.—Emerson. The giving away a man's money.—Burke. It is not the finding of a thing but the making something out of it, after it is found, that is of consequence.—Lowell.
As seen in this last quotation, the participle may be followed by a preposition and so become a pure noun (Lesson 38).] a scholar is not doubted, or That the writer is a scholar is not doubted.
2. I have no doubt of the writer being a scholar. 3. No one ever heard of that man running for office. 4. Brown being a politician prevented his election. 5. I do not doubt him being sincere. 6. Grouchy being behind time decided the fate of Waterloo.