Apposition with demonstratives and summarising nouns

Why add a label? Bare this leaves the idea unnamed

This or it can be perfectly clear when the context identifies the relevant object or event. When several interpretations are possible, an added noun, such as this decision or this delay, helps make the reference more precise.

A summarising noun identifies which aspect of the preceding message you are picking up. It helps readers establish the connection, but does not guarantee complete clarity: an inaccurate or overly broad noun can also confuse them.

This is useful in both writing and conversation. Paragraph length alone does not determine whether it is needed, and neutral phrases such as this change / that decision are also natural in speech.

The council delayed the vote for a third time. This postponement left the contractors without a schedule.

Postponement names what happened. Without it, the second sentence would begin with bare this, leaving the reader to work out whether it referred to the vote, the third occurrence or the whole situation.

Two of the three suppliers stopped deliveries in March. These gaps in supply forced the team to redraw the timetable.

The label need not be a single word: the head noun gaps provides the category, and in supply makes it more precise. Plural these agrees with gaps, not with the number of suppliers.

Emergency repairs began the same evening. This speed surprised the residents.

The label need not name the event itself. Here it names a property of the event: how quickly it happened. This is a choice of perspective, not a mechanical restatement.

Form: demonstrative + summarising noun

Here the demonstrative is a determiner, not a pronoun: it works like the or my and is followed by a noun as the head of the phrase. The key agreement is therefore this / that with a singular noun and these / those with a plural noun. The label’s NOUN determines the number, not the number of events in the previous sentence. Three separate actions can receive a singular label if the writer treats them as one concept.

The resulting phrase is an ordinary noun phrase and behaves like any other. It most often becomes the subject of the next sentence, which makes it a bridge between sentences, but it can also be an object or follow a preposition.

The verb agrees with the head of the label, not with words inside an interruption or in the preceding sentence. A common error occurs when a writer adds a long interruption and forgets that the subject is plural by the time they reach the verb.

How to build it

Previous idea. This / These (That / Those) + summarising noun (+ supplementary phrase between commas) + verb

verb / V: A word for an action or state, such as work or be. The pattern determines its form.
noun: A word naming a person, thing or idea: student, book, happiness.

Sales fell in every region except the north. This pattern repeated in the following quarter.

The label is the subject: this pattern picks up the overall picture and moves the paragraph forward.

Applications closed on Friday and the shortlist appeared on Monday. These dates left candidates no time to prepare.

These agrees with plural dates. Left is the past form of leave, identical in singular and plural, so it does not itself show number. Candidates is also plural but is not this sentence’s subject.

The negotiators worked through two nights. Nobody outside the room understood that effort.

That effort is the object here and refers to the preceding work. This position can also effectively maintain cohesion.

Choosing a noun: classify rather than simply repeat

The noun should be as precise as the purpose requires. Decision, delay, change and pattern identify the kind of preceding idea. Thing or stuff may be too vague, but they are not always empty or incorrect: they can work when the conversation is clear.

The label is often a nominalisation of a preceding verb: delayed → postponement, withdrew → withdrawal, agreed → agreement. This is the simplest route, but not the only one. A stronger label often names the action’s type, consequence or quality rather than the action itself, adding information.

A misleading label is worse than no label because it makes a false claim about the preceding text. If a council has approved something, this description misclassifies that action: it was not a description. A simple check is to substitute the label for the whole preceding sentence and ask whether the statement remains true.

The board agreed to fund the pilot for another year. This backing reassured the research staff.

Backing does not repeat agreed; it names what that agreement means to the researchers: support. The noun conveys information that the first sentence did not state explicitly.

The minister answered only two of the eleven questions. This evasion became the story of the day.

This label draws an inference: from the fact that the minister answered two out of eleven questions, the writer concludes that this was evasion. It is a forceful label, but a responsible writer must be able to support it with the facts.

The company published its raw figures for the first time. This openness disarmed most of the critics.

Openness names a quality of the action rather than the action itself. Compare the uninformative version This thing disarmed most of the critics, which adds nothing to the reader’s understanding.

A phrase between commas: expanding the label

You can immediately expand a label with an appositive: a noun phrase placed beside it and set off by two commas. It does not restrict the label to one particular referent, because the preceding sentence already identifies it. Instead, it adds an assessment, scale or circumstance: how large or unusual it is, or where it came from.

The two commas work as a pair. The first opens the interruption; the second closes it and returns the reader to the main verb. Omitting the second comma is a common punctuation error: the sentence becomes difficult to parse because the subject appears not to reach its main verb.

An appositive between commas must be a noun phrase, not an independent clause with its own subject and verb. This surge, it was the steepest in a decade, pushed… joins clauses incorrectly rather than forming an appositive. If you need a full clause, use dashes, parentheses or a relative clause with which. A subordinate interruption beginning with as or which can also appear between commas, but it comments through a clause and is not an appositive noun phrase expanding the label.

Rents rose by eleven per cent in a single year. This spiral, the steepest since the survey began, pushed three families out of the district.

The inserted phrase does not identify WHAT is being discussed; the label already does that. It describes the scale. After the second comma, the sentence continues with the verb pushed.

The museum returned the collection to Benin. This transfer, the first of its kind in the country, took four years to arrange.

The appositive is a noun phrase, the first of its kind in the country, with no verb of its own. It can therefore be inserted between the paired commas.

Both trains were cancelled without notice. These cancellations, the third pair in a fortnight, finally reached the local paper.

These agrees with cancellations. Reached is a past form with no separate plural ending; the singular appositive the third pair can explain the plural cancellations.

The scope of the label: exactly what does it refer to?

A preceding sentence rarely contains exactly one idea. Choosing a label means deciding which one to pick up: the entire event, one part of it, a series of events or even a whole preceding paragraph. Readers usually accept that decision without questioning it, so an inaccurate label can quietly change the text’s meaning.

A summarising noun can reduce ambiguity when the preceding text contains several events. However, this without a noun is sometimes unambiguous, and a broad noun does not always eliminate every alternative. Name the event explicitly when necessary.

A label can cover more than one sentence. In that case, the writer deliberately chooses a broad noun such as sequence, story, episode or exchange. Its scope is established by what the reader has just read, not by the noun alone.

The inspectors found a cracked beam, and the owner shut the hall the same afternoon. This decision, not the crack itself, is what the newspapers reported.

The previous sentence contains two events. Decision selects the second and excludes the first; not the crack itself makes that selection explicit.

Half the audience left before the interval, and the reviewer walked out with them. This walkout, rather than the review, is what the director remembers.

Here the label instead combines both events into one concept: the audience and reviewer participate in the same walkout.

The tenants complained, the landlord ignored them and the council did nothing. This whole sequence took eight months.

Sequence already names a succession of events, while whole emphasises complete coverage. Without whole, sequence does not automatically refer only to the council’s inaction.

Evaluation built into the noun

The noun in a label can add an evaluation: this achievement approves, while this failure criticises. More neutral labels such as this change or this decision primarily name the kind of event; context determines their tone.

This gives writers a powerful stylistic tool and a responsibility. In a report, briefing or business letter, support an evaluative label with facts in the text or replace it with a neutral one. In writing that openly takes a position, such as a column, letter to the editor or argumentative paragraph, an evaluative label is a concise way to express that position.

A practical technique is to write the label twice, once neutrally and once evaluatively, and see which version the rest of the paragraph supports.

Ministers dropped the ban four days after imposing it. This U-turn dominated the weekend papers.

U-turn presents the reversal as an abrupt change of course. This is an evaluative description; the short interval alone does not prove that the decision was unjustified or inconsistent.

Ministers dropped the ban four days after imposing it. This revision was published without comment.

The antecedent is the same, but the label is neutral. The sentence now reports how the change was published rather than presenting a political defeat.

The department published its error before anyone found it. This honesty cost it nothing and bought it a year of goodwill.

Positive evaluation works in the same way. The writer must be prepared to defend it: honesty is already a claim, not merely a restatement.

Boundaries: this, that, such and the definite article

This / these suggest closeness: what has just been discussed and remains in focus. That / those can distance an event from the moment of speaking, either in time or psychologically: something now behind us or something we distance ourselves from. This is a choice of perspective, not necessarily a question of grammatical correctness; both can work in the same paragraph.

Such + noun means something of that kind rather than precisely this item, so it naturally combines with an assessment of scale. Remember the article: use such a before a singular countable noun (such a collapse), but no indefinite article before uncountable or plural nouns (such instability, such delays).

The decision can also clearly refer to an already known decision. This decision brings it more strongly into the current focus, but a one-sentence gap does not create a rule requiring this instead of the.

In backward reference, the idea comes before the label. However, this + noun has other functions: This problem needs attention:… can introduce a following explanation, while this device can point to a visible object. Backward reference can also connect parts of a single sentence.

Attendance halved within a term. Such a drop had never been recorded at the school before.

Such a drop means a drop of that kind. A is required because drop is a singular countable noun.

Attendance halved within a term. The drop was reported to the governors in June.

The definite article also refers backward, but neutrally: it identifies something already known without emphasising the transition between ideas.

We argued about the budget for two years. That argument now looks like a waste of everyone's time.

That can distance the earlier argument, but this can also bring a completed event into focus as relevant now. It does not mean the argument is still continuing.

Using the pattern in speech and keeping its scope clear

In conversation, the noun helps specify which preceding remark or event you mean. Neutral this decision and evaluative this mess are both possible; their appropriateness depends on what you intend to convey.

This lesson is not about commas in general. Whether commas change the meaning of an appositive belongs to another rule; introducing a definition through namely, that is or i.e. belongs to another. Here, commas simply attach an explanatory appositive to an already named label.

Nor is this lesson about nominalisation as a stylistic choice. The noun gives the backward reference a name, rather than merely creating an academic tone. If the label does not refer backward, it has not performed the function practised here, however formal the noun sounds.

We've lost two of our best editors in six weeks. That drain is what worries me most.

A conversational context, an evaluative label and that instead of this: the event has already happened, and the speaker views it from a distance.

You said the deadline had moved and then that it hadn't. This confusion is why nothing has been printed.

This confusion summarises the conflicting messages. It may be clearer than repeating them, but it does not guarantee a more polite tone.

They cut the budget and then asked for the same report. This contradiction is worth raising on Monday.

The writer interprets the demand as a contradiction between resources and expectations. A budget cut and an unchanged report requirement do not by themselves constitute a formal logical contradiction without further circumstances.

Common mistakes

Incorrect:Three departments rejected the proposal. This objections delayed the launch by a month.

Correct:Three departments rejected the proposal. These objections delayed the launch by a month.

The demonstrative agrees in number with the label’s noun, not with the number of preceding events: use these before objections.

Incorrect:Prices rose twice in the same quarter. These changes was not explained to customers.

Correct:Prices rose twice in the same quarter. These changes were not explained to customers.

The verb agrees with the head of the label. Changes is plural, so use were.

Incorrect:The company cancelled its autumn tour. This decision, an unusual step for the band left ticket-holders without refunds.

Correct:The company cancelled its autumn tour. This decision, an unusual step for the band, left ticket-holders without refunds.

Use TWO commas around the supplementary phrase. Without the second, left appears to attach to the interruption, obscuring the main clause’s verb.

Incorrect:The choir lost half its members within a term. Such collapse had never been seen before.

Correct:The choir lost half its members within a term. Such a collapse had never been seen before.

After such, a singular countable noun needs a. The pattern without an indefinite article is used with uncountable and plural nouns.

Incorrect:Insurance premiums doubled at a single renewal. This doubling, it was the steepest in a decade, pushed two clients to switch.

Correct:Insurance premiums doubled at a single renewal. This doubling, the steepest in a decade, pushed two clients to switch.

An appositive is a noun phrase beside the label, not a separate clause with its own subject. The version with it was incorrectly joins clauses with commas.

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