| 词组 | normalcy |
| 释义 | normalcy Normalcy became a notorious word during the 1920 Presidential election, when Warren G. Harding proclaimed that what the country needed was a return to the "normalcy" of the days before World War I. Those who opposed Harding often criticized him for his less than exemplary use of the language, and they loudly derided normalcy as a characteristically laughable malapropism. The noun formed from the adjective normal, they pointed out, was normality; nouns ending in -cy were formed from adjectives and nouns ending in -t or -te {accuracy from accurate, aristocracy from aristocrat, etc.). Harding's supporters quickly came to his defense, however, even going so far as to look in the OED, where it was discovered that normalcy had been recorded as early as 1857 in a dictionary of mathematics. It had also appeared in Webster 1864 as a rare word with the definition, "state or fact of being normal," and it had been used in the Nation in 1893 and in a book titled Social Evolution in 1894. It was an unusual and uncommon word, certainly, but Warren G. Harding had not invented it. What Harding had done, of course, was to popularize the word. Despite those who regarded it as a "spurious hybrid" (Fowler 1926, for one), normalcy established itself in widespread use during the 1920s. Its notoriety was such that many of those who used it did so self-consciously, often in direct—and usually critical—reference to Harding and his term of office, and there was a persistent tendency to enclose the word in quotation marks: • ... to fear that we may be slipping back to a state of "normalcy" in politics — World's Work, September 1926 But it was also used straightforwardly on occasion: • ... will be restored to a state of normalcy on being put back into ordinary sea-water —Edwin E. Slos-son, Chats on Science, 1924 • The woman whom change of status has left free to work out her own salvation ... is bringing feminism to normalcy —North American Rev., June 1928 During the 1930s, normalcy seems to have become something of a rare word again, as the memory of Harding's presidency faded. The years of World War II saw an appreciable increase in its use, however, and it has continued to be common in the decades since. Its most characteristic use is still in such phrases as a return to normalcy, but its association with Harding is no longer as prominent in people's minds. It often occurs simply as a straightforward synonym of normality: • ... from relative normalcy through marked eccentricity —John Barth, The Floating Opera, 1956 • ... taking special pains to give an impression of completest normalcy —Saul Bellow, Herzog, 1964 • For both Faust and Buddha there is no such thing as normalcy —William Irwin Thompson, Harper's, December 1971 • They became distressed about total normalcy in their infants —Virginia E. Pomeranz, M.D., quoted in Harper's Bazaar, March 1981 Normalcy is now a perfectly reputable word, recognized as standard by all major dictionaries. The controversy that once surrounded it is now almost entirely dead, and there is no need to avoid its use. |
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