Use of だけ with と for saying "only /this/ and /this/"


Recently, I was replying to a comment on YouTube. I wrote this:

でも、「 ラットが死んだ」と「レッド・パージ！！！」が知名そうです

(But, Rats Died (a particular song) and Red Purge!!! (another song title) seem
to be well-known.)

What I really wanted to say was that only those two songs were well-known. Is
it okay to just do this:

でも、「 ラットが死んだ」と「レッド・パージ！！！」だけが知名そうです

or is that not correct? And what other ways can you say "only /a list of
objects/" instead of only just one thing?

Thank you!




As far as grammar is concerned, it is perfectly grammatical to say:

> 「A **と** B **だけ** が～～～です。」

You might, however, want to remember that native speakers do not use 「だけ」
nearly as often as Japanese-learners do to say these things. The sentence
pattern that is commonly used by native speakers would instead be:

> 「A と B **しか / だけしか / 以外{いがい}は** + negative expression」

The first expression using 「だけ」 could sound "translated", meaning that it
could sound unnatural at times if not always.

(Funny thing is that a sentence using 「しか」, which must be followed by a
negative expression, would often sound more positive as a sentence than a
sentence using 「だけ」 followed by an adjective, verb, etc. with a very positive
meaning.)

The mistake in your sentence that actually stands out even more is the phrase
「知名{ちめい}そうです」, which makes little to no sense. Again, it was "translated", was
it not? The phrases I might suggest would be
「有名{ゆうめい}なようです」、「よく知{し}られているようです」, etc. If you used 「しか」, those phrases would
need to be turned into their negative forms.

The sentence I would recommend would be:

> 「でも、『ラットが死んだ』と『レッド・パージ！！！』 **しか** あまり知られていないようです（ね）。」

The sentence that is 100% grammatical but would not necessarily be
recommendable would be:

> 「でも、『ラットが死んだ』と『レッド・パージ！！！』 **だけ** が有名なようです（ね）。」

