Visiting the Eiffel Tower is the most common tourist activity in Paris.
Usual is an adjective that refers to something that is common or used frequently . The term comes from the Latin usualis .
For example: “When you arrive in Paris, the most common thing is to visit the Eiffel Tower” , “It is common in this country for women to wear a veil to cover their faces” , “Leaving the football stadium and going to eat pizza is very usual.”
The usual, therefore, is given by a certain frequency in actions or behaviors . Its meaning can only be understood within a certain society since what is usual within one community may be very strange in another.
Examples of common actions
The fact that two men who barely know each other greet each other with a kiss on the cheek is common in many Latin American countries. However, this same act is uncommon in other latitudes, where kissing is reserved for very close relationships and, perhaps, does not occur in every encounter, but rather after long periods of separation.
In Uruguay , walking down the street with a thermos while enjoying a mate is very common. It is a custom that does not generate surprise or attract attention. On the other hand, a man drinking mate on an American street may be a curiosity or even arouse suspicion among security forces, given the appearance of the herb.
Take the case of the famous actor Viggo Mortensen , born in New York City in 1958 and recognized by millions of people for his portrayal of the character Aragorn in the adaptation of "The Lord of the Rings" by acclaimed director Peter Jackson . Mortensen spent part of his childhood in Venezuela and Argentina and has a special affection for these countries. On one of his international trips, he was detained at an airport for carrying packages of weed, since its appearance was confused with that of marijuana, more common in the United States .
Customs have a weight that can only be appreciated by taking a certain distance, comparing two or more countries , their cities... While one lives in the place where one was born, one cannot clearly appreciate the intensity of certain cultural differences, that some expressions They have no equivalent in another language or in another region, that attitudes considered normal in their territory can be crimes in another.
There are actions that are common in certain regions and atypical in others.
Infrequently used words
Words can also be understood as usual or unusual. If someone comments that “Juan usually says a lot of nonsense,” it is a colloquial expression that does not generate any type of strangeness. The case of someone who expresses: “Juan usually utters a wealth of nonsense” is different. Some of these terms, such as “acquis” or “dislates” , are unusual in everyday speech.
Languages go through an inevitable evolution , which entails a large number of changes, among which are the frequency and context in which certain words are used; In many cases, the passage of time definitively removes a word from everyday vocabulary, remaining only in literature that is considered classic or ancient, as if it were a black and white photo kept in a small memory box.
However, a word that is no longer common in everyday speech can return after a few years, since the twists and turns of this complex and wonderful evolution are unpredictable; Sometimes, a term that had spent decades in the confines of the Royal Spanish Academy , returns to be renewed through new nuances and enjoys a new era of splendor.
Movie "The Usual Suspects"
We can find the usual term in the title of a very popular American movie, since the concept is written in the same way in Spanish and English.
“The usual suspects ” is the film released in 1995 starring Kevin Spacey , Gabriel Byrne , Benicio del Toro and Stephen Baldwin .