He managed to make his entry into fiction without undergoing the usual rites of first-noveldom.
This was a departure from the regime's usual rote assurances that the economy will continue to grow at a strong pace.
Something in Hunt's statement on signing with the Browns sounded like more than the usual rote expression of penitence you hear from players trying to get back on the field.
In what now seems a swift and unexpected change, Mrs. Merkel's arrival in power signals a shift to a new political generation, one that did not go through the usual rites of passage to power in Germany.
The usual rites of degradation: the ongoing unmooring of one's personal identity, the suppression of one's personal authority, the elimination of one's security — a craving for solidity, for one's equanimity, in the face of an ever-present uncertainty.
Yet for students like Ms. Burge, who is ranked in the top 10 of her class, as well as for Mr. Joyce and Mr. Booker, much of the hurly-burly has been a sideshow to the usual rites of passage: college applications, ACTs, prom, final exams and future plans.
The usual rites of degradation: the ongoing unmooring of one's personal identity, the suppression of one's personal authority, the elimination of one's security—a craving for solidity, for one's equanimity, in the face of an ever-present uncertainty.
By its own rules, the church should refuse the usual burial rites to a person who has taken his own life, although the rules may be relaxed if it can be shown the balance of the mind was disturbed.
Sierra Leone, a former British colony in West Africa, sandwiched between Guinea and Liberia, suffered the usual post-independence rites of passage of corruption, unrest, military coups and gerrymandered elections.
He is the ringleader of a group of three close friends, including Kostya Ivan Kupreyenkoo), the bass player in a local rock band, and the earnest, geeky Stepan (Yegor Baranovsky), who share the usual excruciating postadolescent rites of passage.
