Mark my words: normal prejudice

President Warren G Harding(circa 1923)
Image: DickinsonLibrary

God bless America! For chewing gum, Roy Orbison, making the difference in two World Wars, jazz, blues, Tom Paxton, Woody Guthrie, early Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, the Smithsonian Institution and Claudio Reyna's goals that kept Sunderland up one season, we are deeply grateful.
For the words America invents to replace perfectly good ones that already exist, we are not. In my latest My Word column for The National in Abu Dhabi, I single out one such invention for a merciless pounding, but find mixed views among those who care about the language....

The word leapt from a headline as I turned the page. I was aghast, and had no doubt most of my colleagues would share my dismay.

It was not, however, a misprint. Someone paid to work in the English language had actually typed out “normalcy”, not as a crude invention to replace “normality” and make the heading one character shorter to fit the line, but because he saw it as a perfectly proper word.

In fact, the offending page editor was probably as taken aback by my challenge as I had been by the word’s appearance. As someone who had grown up in the US, he would have used it without a moment’s thought.

Indeed, even as I prepared a message to all staff asking that the word should be avoided at all costs, another colleague, also American, pointed me in the direction of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. There it was, midway between “nork” and “Norman”, offered as a variant, albeit North American, of normality. To my intense disappointment, there was no hint of disapproval.

I had to turn to Fowler’s Modern English Usage for the reassuringly stern note that this was “a word of the ‘spurious hybrid’ class (see Hybrids and Malformations), and seems to have nothing to recommend it”. This was exactly what I wanted to read. So strongly did Fowler’s feel on the matter that it saw a need to acquit a past American president, Warren G Harding, of “the charge of having coined it; others had used it long before he did”.

All this bluster serves to illustrate the substantial extent to which language stylists base their judgements on personal preferences. In my capacity as author and custodian of The National’s style guide, I must plead guilty.

Let us consider the etymology of normalcy.

Some scholars question its validity on the grounds that “-cy” is a suffix reserved for words such as democrat that end in “t”. But normalcy appears to have been with us, or at least some of us, for almost as long as normality.

President Harding was not even born when, in 1857, its use was first noted. Normality dates from only eight years earlier. As far as Marilyn Bosckis, one defender of normalcy writing a few years ago on an American publishing house’s website, was concerned, both versions were “perfectly regular formations” accepted by respectable reference books.

Ms Bosckis could not even be accused of pro-Harding bias since she describes him as “notoriously ill-spoken”. But she clearly has a keen sense of natural justice, exonerating him of all blame for a further Americanism that would appal some of us: “to bloviate”, meaning to talk vacuously at length.

Another source on English usage, the website answers.com, cites a pragmatic vindication of Warren Harding’s way with English. It goes so far as to claim that it won him the US presidential election in 1920 after a campaign remembered for his use of normalcy to identify precisely the quality needed in post-war America. The anonymous writer adds that the politician had merely rescued the word from obscurity. Despite the sneers of purists, it had subsequently “become more normal than ‘normality’ to describe the way things usually are or the way we think they ought to be”.

That, of course, is where personal preference takes over; Fowler’s law, on this occasion, prevails. No amount of American lobbying can persuade me of normalcy’s merit or acceptability. It is inelegant when written and ugly when spoken; it remains, except in direct speech, officially banned from the pages of this newspaper.

* See also: Petite Anglaise: mummy dearest

** Picture: DickinsonLibrary

Comments

[Bill Taylor]

Using Colin's logic, the only acceptable English should be Shakespearean. Or perhaps we ought to be speaking Anglo-Saxon (in total, rather than just the handful of four-letter words that still have currency, if not respectability, today).
English is, or should be, a living, breathing and, above all, constantly evolving entity, shaped, enhanced and given fresh colour and vivacity by global variation. But Colin is resolved to maintain a stranglehold upon his own rather stunted, and sometimes stilted, vision of the language.
It seems that while you can take the boy out of the tight, little island, it's less easy to take the tight, little island out of the boy.

[Philip]

Come on Bill, that's an argument that won't run.

Normalcy is only one of a number of words which Americans generally and British educationalists specifically adopt to try and make themselves sound intelligent - an even better example is relevancy for which there is not even the pathetic excuse that it saves syllables or keystrokes.

Just like singers of the X-factor variety who couldn't hold a single note in pitch to save their lives, these pretentious linguists are paid-up members of the "why-use-one-(fill in the noun of your choice: syllable, notes etc)-when-twenty-will-do brigade.

I'm on the side of Colin and Fowler. As my old Maths (and that's a plural, too) master used to say, "it's only Americans that shorten words; that's why they call a lift an elevator".

[Bill Taylor]

You're cast in the same didactic mould (or, as the perfectly acceptable American spelling would have it, mold) as Colin, Philip. Except that I doubt Colin would view "educationalists" with approval.
Your argument and analogies are specious. And why should "maths" be a better short form than "math" for mathematics? It's simply a matter of choice and custom. As for your old math (and that's a singular in my book and lower case, too) master, I hope his addition and subtraction made more sense than his aphorisms.

[Tim]

I'm with Bill in that language - like science, philosophy, indeed life and the universe! - is evolving whether we like the results or not.

However, I agree that a publication has to be consistent in the way it communicates and to that end Colin was appointed words dictator.

Why, though, did it take a long-winded defence on banning one word for the obvious conclusion to be reached? That is that the deciding factor is personal preference.

The hope is that personal preferences can adapt and evolve along with ever-changing speech habits. Like 'googling' or whatever, if normalcy becomes the norm, will Colin have a re-think?

[Colin]

For all the time Bill spends doing "math" homework (in breaks from "molding" poor Toronto interns into images of himself), he still cannot add up. He may think there ought to have been a different outcome to the debate on which form of English the newspaper should adopt, but he will struggle to convince a rational person that there should have been no such debate, and accordingly no winner.

Tim sees that point, accepting the need for consistency. He does so in the course of taking more than 100 words to accuse me of being long-winded. Does he really think the column was about one word? Who, to borrow another "word" of which Bill heartily approve, is doing the "bloviating" here?

[Will Buckley]

You're getting worse, Colin. I suspect your pedantry started out as a defense mechanism when you toiled among the toffs at the Telegraph. Now it's taken you over. You're like a minor character from the Pickwick Papers. Yes, by God, Sir, you are. Next you'll be wearing a brocaded waistcoat and carrying a silver-topped cane.

[colin randall]

Will: did you mean defence?

I note that no one has found it possible to defend ("mount a defense of" as B/Will would have it) normalcy.

[derek reavill]

Colin, I say "Hear! Hear!". How do I stop my son, who has spent two years in the States, from saying "good" when he means "well".

[Tim]

Colin says:
I note that no one has found it possible to defend normalcy.

Why bother when it comes down to personal preference. I like tomarto, they like tomaito.

[National Reporter]

While I hate to throw in my lot with navel-gazers, I won't deny that I've been reading this string with interest. While I've enjoyed reading Colin's columns over the past several weeks, as well as his frequent emails to the staff on all matters of usage, I must say that something has been lacking.

While Colin uses many high-minded descriptions to convey his appalled reactions to Americanisms (this week's "aghast" is a good example) and his opinions of such words ("normalcy" is "crude") I have yet to read a frank discussion of the aesthetics of language.

What attributes of the word "normalcy" somehow render it more "inelegant" or "ugly" when compared to "normality"? What, beyond the dictates of tradition and habit, determines the relative merits of different forms of diction?

I understand the need for consistency in language, but what makes one opinion of a word trump another? If it is simply a question of where one was raised, then might this whole discussion be rather (gasp!) superfluous?

Meanwhile, I have a topic for next week's column: British journalism's use of tense. If I write: "UNICEF officials said they condemn child abuse" editors here change it to "UNICEF officials said they condemned child abuse".
Why the past tense on "condemned"? Did UNICEF stop condemning?

Cheers,
Damn Yankee

[Bill Taylor]

I've heard National Reporter's complaint from a couple of other people I know on the paper (or maybe one of them is National Reporter) and it's quite justified. Strictly speaking, "said they condemnded" MAY be correct usage but it's also stilted and makes the story less readable -- calculated only to turn the reader off. And "said they condemn" is certainly not incorrect. The officials may have said it yesterday but the condemnation continues today,
Derek, why would you want to change the way your son speaks, other than from the conviction that your brand of English is better than his? It's not. It's simply different.
Colin forgets once more that I'm Canadian, not American, and in Canada we tend to use "defence," rather than "defense." Just as we use "centre" and not "center" and "colour instead of "color." Not that the American way is wrong. Simply, as I and Tim have pointed out before, different. It's all a matter of choice.
The National, in its wisdom, has appointed Colin language czar (or do you feel that "tsar" is more acceptable?) and left the choices to him. Fair enough. He makes those choices for the paper. But he really ought not to seek to impose them on the rest of the anglophone world. And I find it ironic that he feels the need to write a weekly column in the paper justifiying his position.

[Keith]

As far as condemn/condemned is concerned, it is not a matter of Americanisms v Anglicisms but one of good grammar. You are using reported speech, therefore it should be in the past tense.
If you make the reasonable arguments that correct grammar is making the copy stilted and less readable and that the condemning is continuing, then perhaps you should compose the sentence in the present tense: "Unicef officials say they condemn child abuse".
Or you could get to the subject matter a lot quicker by turning it round: "Child abuse has been condemned by Unicef".
However, it should be pointed out that Unicef is hardly likely to praise child abuse, so the copy probably belongs on the spike anyway, along with that other great world exclusive: turkeys condemn Christmas.
PS Normalcy is a truly ugly word. End of argument.
PPS Unicef should take upper case initial then revert to lower case because it is an acronym that can be pronounced (see Nato) so I wouldn't mind betting that Colin Randall, the Tsar of Tsyle, will tell National Reporter to get it right next time.
PPPS Anybody who thinks they are all toffs at the Telegraph has obviously never been near the place.

[Bill Taylor]

There are many ugly words in the language, including acronyms that can be pronounced. The fact that they contain a convenient mix of vowels and consonants shouldn't automatically qualify them as words. UNICEF is better than Unicef, NATO is better than Nato, AIDS trumps Aids. But that's just my opinion. I wouldn't dream of imposing it upon the rest of the English-speaking world.
Are you saying Colin's not a toff, Keith? I'll bet you've won your last prize in a Randall/Salut! contest.

[colin randall]

Bill: it is a column about words and the use of English generally, as was made clear in the introductory piece. Not for the first time, your wearied "do we really need this?" tone sits uneasily with a (welcome) eagerness to engage at length in the ensuing debate.

I am 100 per cent with Keith on acronyms that can be pronounced. He is also right to say the sentence quoted by National Reporter should have been omitted altogether since it was completely redundant. Tenses broadly should conform but I do believe in, and encourage, some flexibility (eg I prefer clarity to rigid adherence to grammatical rules, if the two clash).

Incidentally, can we hear from more people who are not journalists but take an interest in how we use the language?

[Pete Sixsmith]

Warren Gameliel Harding was a crook of the first order. He made Richard Milhous Nixon look George Washington. He used the word to appeal to the masses of Nebraska and Wyoming and Ohio who had grown weary of the intellectualism of Woodrow Wilson. Nobody ever got elected by underestimating the intelligence of the US electorate.

As for language and words, Shaw had it right when he said that Britain and the USA were two countries divided by the same language.

I thank you!!

[Roads]

Normalcy -- yeah, it's a rubbish word. No doubt about it.

Although I'm happy to accept North American forms in most places, in my own writing I'm an equally strong proponent of British English.

For example, I religiously use the 's' for words that end in 'ise' -- although in the case of 'recognise' this might be argued as going too far. But it makes a point. There's a Brit writing this stuff.

It's interesting that 'The National' should decide to use British English. I'm not sure if that reflects on the former British influence in the region (we might have 'invented' the nation of Iraq, amongst other crimes, I understand), whether it's the logical outcome of employing staff from 'The Daily Telegraph,' (if The Grauniad team were involved, spelling might not be so consistent) or if it's in some way a subconscious rejection of US imperialism.

Perhaps you could give us more background on this, Colin? It's fascinating to know how editorial policy decisions like this are made.

But now I'm writing this e(i)nquiry, strangely I'm not so sure. And almost before I realis(z)e, I see these words typing themselves onto my screen.

"Well, it's quite simple, Roads. You see we just asked asked this bloke from Sunderland..."

[Bill Taylor]

I stand rebuked. But not chastened. In my own way, I'm probably just as passionate about English as Colin is, though I regard the language as a far broader church. His approach is more that of a doctinaire cardinal.
It's easy to say that his column is about words and the use of English generally, but there's some evidence -- in this one especially -- that he has a second agenda: to hammer home the message that, in The National's news columns, anyway, English English rules, okay. I think we all understood that very quickly, which perhaps is where my weariness comes from.
Colin is also somewhat selective when it comes to Fowler's Modern English Usage (for all the reassurance he takes from its "stern note"). Anyone harking back to the last-but-one (I believe) Words column will find him at odds with Fowler on the split infinitive.
But enough from this journalist, albeit with one final question: Where does Colin get the idea that I would approve of "bloviate?" I don't even know what the word means.

[National Reporter]

At the risk of bloviating, I feel compelled to comment again.

If normalcy is such a "rubbish" word, then why has no one explained what makes it so "ghastly", beyond the obviously different cultural sensibilities (which account for so many differences between North America and Britain, such as dental hygiene)?

For example, I would like to explain why the British penchant for passive voice is so grating to my ear. The sentence "child abuse has been condemned Unicef" would, in my personal opinion, be better stated "Unicef condemns child abuse" or "Unicef officials said they condemn child abuse".

The former construction is weaker and wordier than the latter. It's particularly bad when used in a lead sentence: "A traffic safety initiative was launched by the Abu Dhabi Police" is far weaker than "Abu Dhabi Police launched a traffic safety initiative". The former sentence detaches the actor from his or her actions, and creates a linguistic gap in responsibility. Is it not better to write news in a way that draws the clearest possible connection between those who do and that which has been done?

I smell a My Word column! Or does the column only attack American English?

Cheerio,

Damn Yankee

PS: The argument that the Unicef sentence is redundant holds no water. It is an example of a type of sentence construction, and should be treated as such.

[Bill Taylor]

Were you there, National Reporter, when this ugly scene enacted itself -- the word leaping from the headline and an aghast executive editor turning in search of support from his equally dismayed colleagues? Is there perhaps video of the ensuing confrontation with the offending page editor?
"We name and shame the guilty man." Or perhaps, "A guilty man was named and shamed by us."
It must've been ugly in your newsroom for a while. Bloviation, fulmination, who knows how many "ations?"

[Jen Gerson]

Mr Taylor,
What a surprise it was to see your letter in The National, and to come online to enjoy the ensuing literary smackdown. I hope all is well.

[Bill Taylor]

All is very well, thanks, Jen (knocking, as always, upon wood). I suspect "smackdown" is not a word of which Colin would approve......

[National Reporter]

I was there, actually. And I was listless with confusion.

[Bill Taylor]

Let's give Colin this much -- I don't know anyone else who could turn lexicology into a full-contact sport.

[Jen Gerson]

If you think he's bad, you should take a look at the Revise team.

They started by handing out guides downloaded from the Poynter Institute and have since spiraled into a team of hirsute men muttering darkly.

[Bill Taylor]

The Poynter Institute?? But that's AMERICAN!! (And some say overrated.)