If I ask an English speaker to spell out TOC, I would expect it to be "Table of Contents" with an 's'. But I not much but sometimes do see "Table of Content" without an 's' in some books. Is this simply a matter or choice? or are there any other reason or special meaning for using the singular form?
166k 37 37 gold badges 440 440 silver badges 773 773 bronze badges asked Nov 9, 2014 at 1:12 user165173 user165173"Table of Contents" is certainly what I'm familiar with. But "Table of Content" is not technically incorrect, and some authors/editors may like it, either because it's "different" or because they feel it fits their tome better.
Commented Nov 9, 2014 at 14:47I wonder if you have seen "Table of Content" in a book published by a major UK or US or Canadian or Australian publisher.
Commented Mar 19, 2015 at 19:36In present-day U.S. publishing, people often use the term content to refer collectively to the editorial and design elements in a periodical or book. And yet, as DJ Far observes, the front-matter listing of the book or periodical's editorial content is usually called the "Table of Contents."
The Ngram chart for "table of contents" (red line) versus "table of content" (blue line) for the years 1650 through 2000 shows that there really isn't much of a contest here:
And yet a match of "contents of the book" (red line) and "content of the book" (blue line) for the years from 1700 through 2000 shows a much closer split in usage over the past century:
It's an interesting phenomenon, but I have no explanation for why it has emerged.