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Which use of possessive is correct

  • "I'm grateful for my mother's love"

or

  • "I'm grateful for the love of my mother" ?

Or are they both correct, but carry different meaning? I would say "my mother's love" but I can't find a logical explanation for that. Can anyone help me? Possessive case always confuses me, because I don't understand the logic behind choosing 's or of.

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"I'm grateful for my mother's love" or "I'm grateful for the love of my mother"?

They are both correct. There may be a slight difference of emphasis, depending on the context.

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Using of has a sort of formal, poetic or stilted feel. It's not how most people would generally talk (in my experience anyway) so it carries a different tone to using the usual 's possessive. You'll often see it for very grand descriptions or names of things, where using 's would sound more humble or mundane.

But they're both correct and interchangeable, although of starts to sound a bit ridiculous when you move from high concepts to things like "the food of my cat is all over the floor" as though you're telling an epic story.

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