Normalcy

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Spawned by the Boston thread. I shudder in depressed horror whenever Americans (who seem to be the only ones who do) use this word seriously. I know it was around for a while before it was used by famous moron (and U.S. President) Warren G. Harding, but really, it’s just _so_ ugly, and infintely inferior to ‘normality’. I mean, is the world going to be using the delightful innovations of George W. Bush as lexical gold in 50 years’ time?

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Monday, 25 November 2002 15:21 (twenty-three years ago)

We Americans delight in making the British shudder in horror.

― Sean (Sean), Monday, 25 November 2002 15:24 (twenty-three years ago)

no I've seen it used by articles in this country (well one actually but i can't remember now exactly what it was).

I like that word. it should be used more.

― Julio Desouza (jdesouza), Monday, 25 November 2002 15:26 (twenty-three years ago)

I find myself saying "misunderestimate" alarmingly often.

― Maria (Maria), Monday, 25 November 2002 15:26 (twenty-three years ago)

One of Matt's 'trainers' in his new job *keeps* saying 'misprehension', apparently. Maybe there is something about the prefix mis- that screws with people's brains. (Though she also spells 'dial' as 'dail' so...)

― Archel (Archel), Monday, 25 November 2002 15:40 (twenty-three years ago)

so does she misdail, or does the mis bit confuse her into misdialing?

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 25 November 2002 16:13 (twenty-three years ago)

THANK YOU Liz. I may be American, but I hate to see "normalcy"--especially in newspapers whose editors ought to know better.

― j.lu (j.lu), Monday, 25 November 2002 16:14 (twenty-three years ago)

People
Against
Goodness
And
Normalcy

― Graham (graham), Monday, 25 November 2002 16:19 (twenty-three years ago)

hehehe. now i remember where i heard 'normalcy' 100,000 times in my youth. dragnet. thanks, graham, that was bugging the hell out of me.

― g-kit (g-kit), Monday, 25 November 2002 16:20 (twenty-three years ago)

(Though she also spells 'dial' as 'dail' so...)

bang

― RJG (RJG), Monday, 25 November 2002 16:31 (twenty-three years ago)

I thought it was an academic version, myself. My film tutor used it in my first lesson at university (along with "specificity"), and it never occurred to me his Canadian-ness might have something to do with it.

It's far, far less offensive than some Americanisms, though. I'm not sure I'm up for the aggro to mention them :)

― Mark C (Mark C), Monday, 25 November 2002 17:51 (twenty-three years ago)

hmmmm, supposably

― stevem (blueski), Monday, 25 November 2002 18:26 (twenty-three years ago)

graham i love you!!

― s trife (simon_tr), Monday, 25 November 2002 18:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh dear, that's a Dragnet movie reference, yes?

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 November 2002 18:40 (twenty-three years ago)

"Oh dear" ?????

― Graham (graham), Monday, 25 November 2002 18:46 (twenty-three years ago)

That's Neden* for "I kiss you".

*Of course Ned would speak Neden. HAW HAW HAW.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Monday, 25 November 2002 19:49 (twenty-three years ago)

LINGUISTIC MADNESS.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Monday, 25 November 2002 20:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Someone in the office here got an email yesterday that featured the word 'zeroize'. It sounds very American. Next there will be 'zeroization', and then someone wanting the verb won't step back to what was already horrible, but instead will boldly stride forward to 'zeroizationalize'.

If you must, why not just 'zero' a column of figures?

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 14:02 (twenty-three years ago)

that would be very noughty.

― MarkH (MarkH), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 14:05 (twenty-three years ago)

Has no-one mentioned revert yet?

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 14:10 (twenty-three years ago)

Do you have realcy TV?

― Madchen (Madchen), Tuesday, 26 November 2002 14:27 (twenty-three years ago)

Someone in the office here got an email yesterday that featured the word 'zeroize'.

Hunt down and kill the author of that e-mail. I'm serious.

― j.lu (j.lu), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 04:41 (twenty-three years ago)

Are we forgetting that an alarming number of English (meaning British and American English) words were just invented? Not to mention that the entire language is an idiomatic bastardisation of other archaic languages anyway??

― B, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 04:49 (twenty-three years ago)

I don't think we are forgetting that. But some new coinages just seem to have an instant 'YUCK' factor (which does sometimes fade in time.)

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 09:27 (twenty-three years ago)

well, either the "yuck" factor fades or the word falls out of use. One thing that it v. noticeable about the new words in the Oxford Dictionary of New Words is that most of them are phrases which make use of existing words in new ways.

― MarkH (MarkH), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 10:21 (twenty-three years ago)

Delia!

― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 10:55 (twenty-three years ago)

I have nothing against new words, and I mostly like the trend towards verbing, i.e. using nouns or even adjectives as if they were also verbs. As I said, I would not protest at the use of 'zero' as a verb, to set something to zero. This is fine, clear and slightly useful, but I see no reason at all to coin something like 'zeroize'.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 13:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Zeroizification!

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 14:53 (twenty-three years ago)

Mmmm it's probably the popularizificationism of novelty coinings by foolish public figures that gets to me most, because they (as professional monkeys) are pretty much bound to make the least graceful syntax the world has yet seen.

I think that using 'Delia' to indicate a popular yet nobby recipe (orig. 'receipt'!) type thing is rubbish. Because of personal dislike for the NorWitch.

So it's my indexality of curmudgeonishness that influences my current linguistic policy. Bah. Hah.

― Liz :x (Liz :x), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 15:36 (twenty-three years ago)

Found today in this article:

"He, however, added a lot remained to be done to restore full-scale normalcy."

The struggle continues.

― Ned Raggett (Ned), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 15:45 (twenty-three years ago)

I think someone (Tom?) once said 'aggressive normalcy' and I copied it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 18:23 (twenty-three years ago)

Oh dear. Stuart Jeffries on page 5 of today's Guardian (part 2): "...the Y becomes what one might call a synedochical letter. A synedoche, you'll recall, is when part of a word stands for the whole." He was talking about writing 'Y' when you mean 'why'. The misspelling and untrue explanation are all his.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 19:33 (twenty-three years ago)

And he even misspelled it...or you misspelled it. Somebody misspelled it!!

― B, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 20:16 (twenty-three years ago)

Er, my last sentence was a clue as to whose spelling was wrong.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 21:02 (twenty-three years ago)

oh yeh...suppose I should have read the whole thing. heh heh...

― B, Wednesday, 27 November 2002 21:04 (twenty-three years ago)

Most Americans view the French languange as being "classy" and "pure" and "hoity toity" etc.

What most Americans don't realize is that French is just a thousand year old bastardized horribly mispronounced Latin.

These Americanisms and such, however high the "yuck" factor involved, are the beginnings of the new language of the future.

Personally, I agree with Laurie Anderson that 'language is a virus'...and it's constantly mutating.

― nickalicious (nickalicious), Wednesday, 27 November 2002 21:18 (twenty-three years ago)

Isn't English just the same as French, then? Only a different mispronunciation. And then Spanish and Italian, basically the same language, with different idiomatic stresses and turns...and then the difference between American English and English English...mostly just slang, and the simplification done by Webster. And don't even get me started on ebonics.........

― B, Thursday, 28 November 2002 04:25 (twenty-three years ago)

Just overheard in my office: "I can certainly diarize that for 6th May."

― Madchen (Madchen), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:46 (twenty-three years ago)

direize.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 28 November 2002 14:52 (twenty-three years ago)

Diarreze?

― N. (nickdastoor), Thursday, 28 November 2002 15:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I've been hearing diarize (or diarise, poss) for many years. I am very fussy about accuracy and against most neologisms because they seem useless, but this sounds fine to my ears, and seems to say something ('record the appointment in my diary') useful very economically. I don't know why "I'll diary it" sounds rubbish to me, when I found a verb use of 'zero' preferable to 'zeroise'. Maybe because 'zero' is already a verb, as in 'zero in', while 'diary' isn't.

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Thursday, 28 November 2002 18:49 (twenty-three years ago)

Diarreze??

martin, I think you're hypocrisizing yourself.

― RJG (RJG), Thursday, 28 November 2002 19:04 (twenty-three years ago)

I was sure 'Diarreze' was a diarrhoea remedy but google suggests I have invented it.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 30 November 2002 13:38 (twenty-three years ago)

I think you're right, Nick. Maybe try olddiarrhoearemedies.com? (I made that URL up, obv.)

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 30 November 2002 13:55 (twenty-three years ago)

it is. it's spelt with one 'r' though (Google tells me)

― michael (michael), Saturday, 30 November 2002 13:58 (twenty-three years ago)

Thanks Michael. I had assumed that Google's spellchecking whizzbangery would have suggested such a minor change but no.

I'm still annoyed that Martin made that URL up, though.

― N. (nickdastoor), Saturday, 30 November 2002 14:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am tempted to create such a website, as an act of contrition. But I'm not sure I'd make the kind of new friends I want...

― Martin Skidmore (Martin Skidmore), Saturday, 30 November 2002 16:07 (twenty-three years ago)

Yeah, but French has been subject to a lot more official oversight & the proper version of the language really hasn't changed so much in a few centuries now.. I am currently trying to fix up my American accent which sounds wretched en français, and the reason I kept it so long was.. who wants to sound like a snob.

Incidentally, what irks me the most is the tendancy of American businesses now to name/rename themselves with some entirely bastardized piece of corporatese. There are consultants who make tons of money inventing names like 'Verizon' b/c the perfectly serviceable 'Bell Atlantic' didn't sound futuristic enough.

― daria g, Saturday, 30 November 2002 18:43 (twenty-three years ago)

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