Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner's English Dictionary - these

Frequency: The word is one of the 700 most common words in English. 1. You use these at the beginning of noun groups to refer to someone or something that you have already mentioned or identified. Switch to an interest-paying current account and stay in credit. Most banks and larger building societies now offer these accounts... A steering committee has been formed. These people can make decisions in ten minutes which would usually take us months. DET: DET pl-n • These is also a pronoun. AIDS kills mostly the young population of a nation. These are the people who contribute most to a country’s economic development. PRON 2. You use these to introduce people or things that you are going to talk about. Your camcorder should have these basic features: autofocus, playback facility, zoom lens... DET: DET pl-n • These is also a pronoun. Look after yourself properly while you are pregnant. These are some of the things you can do for yourself. PRON 3. In spoken English, people use these to introduce people or things into a story. I was on my own and these fellows came along towards me... DET: DET pl-n 4. You use these when you are identifying someone or asking about their identity. These are my children. PRON 5. You use these to refer to people or things that are near you, especially when you touch them or point to them. These scissors are awfully heavy. DET: DET pl-n • These is also a pronoun. These are the people who are doing our loft conversion for us... PRON 6. You use these when you refer to something which you expect the person you are talking to to know about, or when you are checking that you are both thinking of the same person or thing. You know these last few months when we’ve been expecting it to warm up a little bit?... DET: DET pl-n 7. You use these in the expression these days to mean ‘at the present time’. Living in Bootham these days can be depressing... DET: DET pl-n