These--or them, or they

The demonstrative pronoun these can precede a noun as an adjective: these apples are ripe. Or it can stand alone as a substantive, acting as a noun: these are ripe.

Consider this pair of sentences from a recent Economist:

In a bid to salvage his reputation, Mr Badawi has belatedly started keeping the bold promises of reform that he made on coming to office in 2003. Foremost among these was curbing corruption within the government.

Here, these is the object of the preposition among, acting as a pronoun and standing for promises.

These can often stand alone as the subject of a clause, if it's clear what these refers to (see below). But these works less well as the object of a preposition or of a verb form. I usually switch to the pronoun them, which for me works much better.

'the bold promises of reform that he made on coming to office in 2003. Foremost among them was curbing corruption'

If it's not clear what these or them refers to, I insert the noun, switching these from a substantive to a demonstrative adjective ('Foremost among these promises').

Another usage is as follows:

 The case studies come next. These are straightforward and require mainly copyediting.

My colleagues Meta, Elaine, and Chris would write they, because these implies the existence of those, as though there's another set of book elements that are not straightforward. If there is another set, these would be acceptable, though I'd probably stick with they. Nick has another view (see his comment on this post).

One problem with the standalone substantive is that it usually forces the reader to stop and go back to look for the noun it refers to.

Less of a problem is announcing the noun:

These, then, are the reasons for taking the new threats seriously.

A nice rhetorical flourish.

But why not write those, then, are the reasons? More on this next week.