English Café: How to use the word “following”

Advanced Details: How to use “the following”

Most of the time we use the following as an adjective or a verb:

Adjective

• I will be out of the office the following week.
• If we’re lucky, we’ll catch a following wind.

Verb

• The helper has been following me about all day.
• Follow me. The canteen is this way.

However, we can also use the following as a preposition and as a pronoun:

Preposition

• Following lunch the instructor asked us to work in teams.

Pronoun

• (The) Following is a guide to the subject.
• Regarding our return to EnCo, the following are the times of departing trains: 2 p.m., 4 p.m., and 8 p.m.