Richard-Business Eng
Professional Teacher
bird egg or bird's egg

Today an English learner wrote a notebook.
In the notebook she referred to 'a bird egg'.
One good soul suggested that 'bird egg' should be written as 'bird's egg'.
I searched to see if there was a grammatical rule or convention that might be applicable.
I came up empty-handed.
Frankly, I believe that either is acceptable, however I'm not sure.

There are many instances where the animal's name is not in the possessive form, such as:

- chicken egg

- ostrich egg

- snake egg

- duck egg

- reptile egg

- Easter egg ...... just kidding.... :)

 

Has anyone come across this situation before?

What do you think?

Any comments?

Aug 26, 2015 11:53 AM
Comments · 6
3

It seems rather illogical because I much prefer the sound of 'bird's egg', and yet you provided a list of examples where the animal is not a possessive and they all sound fine.

Point of interest, if you call a person a 'duck egg' it is means they are stupid or an idiot in certain parts the UK. Quite why, I do not know. It's a little outdated nowadays though.

August 26, 2015
2

@ Spangola... yes, I think you're right... compound noun

 

@ Paul... wow, another colloquialism from the great UK. Man, you chaps (cool word) certainly have no shortage of unique expressions...

 

I also posted this same question in the Answer section of the site. There were several interesting, even comical reponses, so you may want to have a look...

 

http://www.italki.com/question/319505


Thank you both.

August 26, 2015
2

I think "duck egg" etc are called compound nouns.

August 26, 2015
1

???? There seem to be two questions, there, Richard. The other one is the one I responded to:

 

http://www.italki.com/question/319426

 

For a moment I feared that my answer had disappeared.

August 26, 2015

Hi Dan

Actually, to my mind, your wife's distinction between the two phrases makes perfect sense, and who am I to disagree on a topic like this with someone from the US midwest.

August 27, 2015
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