Those!

Ok let's start with the example given in the picture above. Although they are not mentioned separately, we can see that the writer is implicitly referring to two groups of people:

• people who believe in magic
• people who do not believe in magic

The same text could have been written as follows:

The writer is using those to focus on one of the groups.

This is the function of those.

If we return to the handphones and laptops example, the focus is on only one group of things - consumer products. In which case you need these:

Only use those when you are dealing with more than one group of things or people and you want to focus on one of the groups. Here is another example:

Very often those is followed immediately by a relative pronoun - who, that, which, etc.:

• It makes those who appoint judges understandably cautious.
• Those who regularly drink milk feel less stressed.
• The greatest ideas are those that are the simplest.
• Many of those that remain are very small.
• The only houses with weaker protections are those which remain empty.
• A special category of ECUs are those which are programmable.

Notice that those where and those in which are followed by an independent clause:

• The very best dinner parties are those where you meet new best friends.
• The most boring presentations are those where the speaker reads the words on the screen.
• The stories that people most love are those in which characters overcome unusual limitations.
• Matrifocal societies are those in which women, especially mothers, occupy a central position.