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Which one is correct to use in a sentence, "My day was usual" or "My day was ordinary"?

herisson
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aygun
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    Usual and ordinary mean slightly different things which a dictionary will help with. We can help with the sentence structure. – Andrew Leach Dec 04 '13 at 07:33

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My day was ordinary is preferable. Ordinary is an adjective that can be used both attributively (before the noun: an ordinary day) and predicatively (as a subject complement: my day was ordinary).

Usual, on the other hand is an adjective that is not commonly used predicatively (?My day was usual). Two other non-predicative adjectives are: main and mere:

That is the main idea. (**That idea is main.*)

She is a mere child. (**The child is mere*.)

There are some good answers to another question about non-predicative adjectives here: Adjectives that do not have predicative position

Community
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Shoe
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  • Beat me to it! Have an upvote. – Andrew Leach Dec 04 '13 at 07:30
  • @Andrew. Sorry, It's irritating to work on an answer only to be beaten to the posting by a few seconds. And your point about the semantic difference between the two sentences is well-taken. – Shoe Dec 04 '13 at 07:43