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Assumed A, B, and C are book name, which one of the following sentence is correct for the usage of "s" suffix in "book" word?

  1. Are the A, B, and C books inside the box?

  2. Are the A, B, and C book inside the box?

  3. Both 1 & 2 are correct.

  4. Everything is wrong (then say something about it ^^)

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    books because they are clearly a plural case, and there's no question of singular accord due to C being singular because "A, B, and C" is in itself plural. I know there is a duplicate question of this somewhere, but can't find it.
    – Jon Hanna
    Commented Jan 13, 2015 at 14:11
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    Here's a book entitled The Old and New Testament Connected: In the History of the Jews and Neighbouring Nations. Given book and testament are just "nouns" in OP's and my examples it's not obvious to me singular can never be used like this. Unless it's obsolete (the book was published MDCCLXX, which I make 1770, despite Google Books dating it as 1725).
    – FumbleFingers
    Commented Jan 13, 2015 at 15:41

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Your 1) is grammatical, though it is a bit unusual. Normally you'd just say

Are A, B, and C in the box?

or if you didn't expect the hearer to recognise the names as book titles:

Are the books A, B, and C in the box?

Your 2) is not grammatical.

(I have changed inside to in in my examples. Inside is grammatical, but I would only use it if I was making a contrast, eg inside as opposed to next to the box.)

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  • I'm a bit confused, so both 1 & 2 are both correct but 1 is grammatical correct and 2 is grammatical wrong?
    – null
    Commented Jan 13, 2015 at 14:29
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    @suud- I don't think Colin ever said 2 was correct- It isn't. And it isn't because it's ungrammatical.
    – Jim
    Commented Jan 13, 2015 at 14:56
  • I don't answer questions about "correct", because to me that is a social question which depends on which guru of etiquette you choose to follow.
    – Colin Fine
    Commented Jan 15, 2015 at 17:20

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