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how do u use former and latter? which one means first and which one means last?
Approved answer (verified by Tanit)
"The former" and "the latter" are rather formal.
The former is the first of two people or things just mentioned; the latteris the second of those things or people.
"If offered tea or coffee, I'd choose the former." (I'd choose tea)
"I visited London and Cambridge during the holidays. The latter is truly beautiful." (Cambridge is beautiful)
"'Argentina' and 'country' are nouns. The former is a proper noun, the latter (is) a common one."
Sorry Miriam but ...it is the other way around.
Anon, usually posts responding to questions that have been propertly answered YEARS ago are just deleted, but I wanted to post yours so that we could clear us your confusion.
Miriam was correct. The former is the first of the two mentioned, the latter is the second of the two mentioned.
You seemed to have learned it the wrong way.
Former is first, while latter is last. For ex; Diane likes both lasagne and pizza, but she prefers the former to the latter.
This means Diane prefers lasagne to pizza because the former is the first one (lasagne) while pizza was the last (latter)
Simple as that.
Just remember that F comes before L or that F=first and L=last. So former is the first and latter is the last!
That will help a ton! I always get confused with the two. Fantastic way to remember it.
Thank you for the very, very simple way to remember Former vs. Latter! This way, I'll always know which comes first...F before L. Great hint!
Former came before and latter came later