the courage of that man

Question

a. He mentioned the courage of Tom.

b. He mentioned the courage of President Dubcek during the Prague Spring.

Do you find these sentences grammatically correct?

Do you find them natural?

I think they are both grammatical, but (b) sounds natural and (a) doesn't.

I think in (a) 'Tom's courage' would be natural.

I think (b) works although 'President Dubcek's courage' would be more natural.

The question is whether one can use the 'of possessive' instead of the 'apostrophe s possessive in these cases.

I don't know why (b) sounds natural to me and (a) sounds awful.

Answer 1

The inverted form "The [noun] of [person's name]" is more often used when the name is part of, or followed by, a phrase giving more information. We can say

He mentioned President Dubcek's courage.

He mentioned the courage of Tom would be more natural if followed by who had rescued two people from a burning building, for example.