"Usual" as a noun?

Question

Here goes the original sentence

"The islanders of the longest life expectancy in the world, and it seems none of the usual fears

of growing old."

I checked out practically every dictionary online,

but there's no such a usage by setting "usual"as a noun.

Dave Phillips · Accepted Answer

Fears is the noun, usual is an adjective, modifying the noun.

Chivalry · Answer

That still doesn't make sense to me.

Because if that way,

shoudn't the sentence be "The islanders have the longest life expectancy in the world, and there seems to be none of the usual fears of growing old." instead of just "it seems none of the usual fears of growing old."?

BillJ · Answer

chivalryThat still doesn't make sense to me. Because if that way, shoudn't the sentence be "The islanders have the longest life expectancy in the world, and there seems to be none of the usual fears of growing old." instead of just "it seems none of the usual fears of growing old."?

No, you're not analysing the original sentence properly. What it means is that the islanders possess two qualities: the longest life expectancy in the world and none of the usual fears of growing old. If we change the punctuation slightly, it becomes clearer:

"The islanders have the longest life expectancy in the world and, it seems, none of the usual fears of growing old".

As you can see, the verb "have" has the two underlined coordinated noun phrases as objects. The heads of the NPs are "life expectancy" and "fears", the latter being modified by the adjective "usual".

Does that make sense now?

BillJ

Dave Phillips · Answer

Thanks Bill

Chivalry · Answer

Thanks a lot Bill

"Usual" as a noun?

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