The Spectator

Are we returning to ‘normalcy’ or ‘normality’?

Warren Harding [Getty Images] 
issue 30 January 2021

New normal

Why have so many people started saying ‘normalcy’ rather than ‘normality’? — Normalcy has been traced back to 1857 when it was used in geometry to denote a state where lines were perpendicular to each other. It was rarely used outside mathematics until 1920, when the then US presidential candidate Warren Harding made a speech in Boston referring to a ‘return to normalcy’ following the Great War.

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