Anyone else's?

[Tomasz Klimkiewicz]

Hi, All,

Of the two sentences:

1) It's his not anyone else's fault
2) It's his not anyone's else fault

the first one sounds more natural to me, while the second seems to be more in accordance with the general rules.
I'd be grateful for our experts' opinion. Also, should there be a comma after "...his" ?

Thank you very much in advance.

 

[Barb_D]

Anyone else's fault.

It's not anyone's fault but his.

I feel it would be better with a comma after "his."

 

[emsr2d2]

I would put two commas. "It's his, not anyone else's, fault."

Actually, I would probably use brackets as the commas are clunky. "It's his (not anyone else's) fault."

And on a third reading, I would probably use "It's his fault, not anyone else's" or, as a variation on Barb's suggestion, "It's no-one else's fault but/except his".