Hello,
When referring to
a group of people that have just been mentioned in a text, would you refer to them as
the latters (with a final "s" as in "the others") or
the latter (invariable, as generic adjectives used as nouns like "the rich", "the poor", "the lame" etc.)
(I would like to check this because I found a significant number of instances of "the formers / the latters" on .uk sites on Google (not all of which are the misspelt equivalents of "the former's / the latter's") :
cf.
Google
(on a university site, for instance, I found the following occurrence :
"reminiscence and life review activity sessions followed a standard format adapted from Bornat (1994) and Haight (1992) respectively, while the disclosure activity sessions were developed within Pennebaker's (
Traue and Pennebaker, 1993) theoretical framework through a period of pilot work. The disclosure sessions were differentiated most clearly from the reminiscence and life review sessions by
the formers' focus on the present and future.")
Thank you very much in advance.