When asked, "What are these called in English?" or similar, should we use just the right pronoun or can we also answer with the right demonstrative pronoun? For example, which is grammatical or preferred: "They are chopsticks" or "These are chopsticks"?
Learn English – “They are…” vs. “these are” when answering the question “What are these…?”
grammaticalitypronounsword-choicewriting-style
Related Solutions
The answer to the question is the normal grammatical form.
In British print sources, the answer to this question changed midway through the 20th century. Before 1945, “I have no clue” was nearly always preferred to “I have not a clue”. Beginning that year, “I have not a clue” and “I haven’t a clue” began a sharp rise in popularity,¹ dominating by 1980.
American print sources exhibit virtually the same pattern.
Notes
¹ Google Ngram Viewer does not differentiate
notandn’t. There is no way to chart the two separately.
Best Answer
Although "These are ..." would be preferred to match the question, I would use "They are ..." since the item(s) in question (in most of the cases) will not be close enough for me to refer them with "these".