Legal Writing

Normality and Normalcy

By Maeve Maddox

Audrey Bennett asks:

Can “normalcy” and “normality” be used interchangeably?

Both nouns derive from the adjective normal.

normal: conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

The adverb is normally.

According to some speakers, normalcy is an abominable neologism to be avoided at all costs. This attitude is illustrated by this comment praising a writer for preferring normality over normalcy:

A Nobel in Literature to you for writing ?return to normality? instead of the ugly neologism ?normalcy,? first popularized by Warren G. Harding.

Actually, according to the OED, this particular “neologism” was around as early as 1857, nearly half a century before Harding used it in his campaign in 1920 when he promised “a return to normalcy.”

The following examples are all from U.S. publications:

After Opener, Giants Hoping for Normalcy

For a man doing time on the yard, sports offer a touch of normality and tangible contact with his life outside.

Pasternack hoping to bring normalcy to New Orleans

Seventeen years later, my quest for normality had taken me through a career in journalism?

AFTER THE STORM; South Florida Staggers to Normality

Evacuees Worry and Hope for Return to Normalcy

Normalcy is not interchangeable with normality in some contexts. For example, in comparing an untypical condition to a typical condition, one would want to pair abnormality with normality and not normalcy. Although the form “abnormalcy” is showing up on the web and even in some dictionaries, it’s not in the OED, and it is not standard in American speech.

Bottom line: Normalcy is well established and acceptable in standard American speech, although it is not interchangeable with normality in some contexts. Normality, on the other hand, suits every context in which the sense “the state or condition of being normal” is intended.

Full post as published by Daily Writing Tips on June 09, 2010 (boomark / email).