Four bright young stars nestled in the nebula like [ birds’ eggs | bird’s eggs | birds eggs ] in a nest.
The correct answer is the first option.
Any insight as to why?
Four bright young stars nestled in the nebula like [ birds’ eggs | bird’s eggs | birds eggs ] in a nest.
The correct answer is the first option.
Any insight as to why?
The reason is because that answer is plural possessive, and that’s what you are looking for based on clues within the sentence.
Clue for plural: You wouldn’t say “bird” singular without putting an “a” or “the” in front of it, but you could say “birds” without either of these terms, as in this sentence.
Clue for possessive: The eggs belong to the birds. Possessive here is indicated with the apostrophe. If you look up possessive of plural nouns, you will see examples showing how you remove the final s if the word ends in s as in this sentence.
@mommyrocks Thank you so much for your help.
Your explanation clears up a lot of misunderstanding and I look like a fool now.
I previously did not realise that an article (a, the) is not present.
Nobody looks like a fool for asking a question! In physics lab today, my group and I were adding two terms together – think -q/4 and -2q/4, with a few more things in the denominator. We literally had to sit there and think, “What does that make? Is it really just -3q/4???” No shame in making sure.
the plural possessive is correct here