What is foreign?

What Does foreign Mean

With etymological origin in the low Latin word foraneus , foreign is an adjective that refers to the foreign or alien . The term can refer to a person, an object, a custom, etc.

For example: "According to analysts, the foreign vote will be very important in the next presidential elections" , "The foreign reinforcement of the Uruguayan club was the main figure of the party" , "The economy of our country needs foreign credit to be able to grow ” .
In the field of sport , the idea of ​​foreigner is often used to refer to a player born in a country other than the tournament or championship in which he competes . In general, teams can only have a certain number of foreign players: the rest of the squad must be made up of national players. That is why they are looking for foreign reinforcements capable of making a difference on the playing field thanks to their good level.

The San Lorenzo de Almagro , to cite one case, began the 2017-2018 season of the National Basketball League of Argentina with three foreign reinforcements: American Dar Tucker , Cuban Javier Justiz Ferrer and Uruguay Mathías Calfani . It should be noted that, in this competition , teams can have up to eight foreign senior players.
In various countries , on the other hand, the celebration of foreign parties is becoming common, which are becoming known thanks to globalization and the influence of the media. In this way, today many South American nations celebrate Halloween , a foreign tradition that has no historical or cultural support in the region.
Another of the areas in which the use of this term takes place is food, since globalization opens the doors to cultural fusion in a way that in the middle of the 20th century would have seemed impossible. In large cities, it is not uncommon to find foreign food in supermarkets as part of basic products, something that can be enriching for exporters but detrimental for local producers.
Governments sign various agreements thanks to which they access these foreign foods at very convenient prices , and thus large market chains can offer their customers extremely tempting offers. However, in most cases these measures negatively affect local producers, since it is impossible for them to compete in price with international exporters. Although it is hard to believe, it is often the government itself that hinders their activity by imposing abusive rates and other blockades.

Another of the practices that large companies use to expand their field of action and enrich themselves is the acquisition of foreign markets . Those with a fortune under their belt can easily buy several smaller companies from other parts of the world, gradually becoming more important internationally and improving their distribution routes. With their own manufacturing plants abroad, even shipping products is much cheaper as they do not have to pay for them.
Although in the dictionaries of synonyms we do not usually find many words that can be used in place of foreign beyond foreign , there is a list of moderate length of others that have a certain relationship, among which are foreign, alien, exotic and intruder. The latter is perhaps the least adequate to replace it, but the fact that they are linked speaks of the connotation that foreign things can have for the peoples: as well as in the case of imported food products that harm local producers, various situations in which an external agent is introduced to a system can be considered negative, as if it were an "intrusion", although the agent itself is not the culprit of this effect.

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