When I was chatting to Peta Credlin on Sky News the question came up of the word ‘normalcy’. It has exactly the same meaning as the far more common word ‘normality’– so ‘normalcy’ is not (to be honest) a word we need. ‘Normality’ is recorded from 1839 with the meaning we are all familiar with: ‘a situation in which things happen in the usual or expected way’ (Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English). ‘Normalcy’ appears to have been coined in the US around 20 years later – perhaps as a ‘portmanteau’ word: two words packaged together. In this case ‘normal’ and ‘tendency’. At any rate ‘normalcy’ has not caught on in the same way, and is used far less frequently than ‘normality’ – although perhaps its use is increasing. Why might this be? The word ‘normal’ is recorded in English from the 1500s (from a French source, behind which is a post-classical Latin word) with the meaning of: ‘Constituting or conforming to a type or standard; regular, usual, typical; ordinary, conventional.’ (Oxford English Dictionary). But this is now a word the woke warriors find offensive – because if we say something is ‘normal’ then anything that doesn’t conform is (logically) ‘abnormal’. So, if I say it is normal for a child to have a Mum and a Dad – some people will take offence. It’s true of course – statistically it is normal for a child to have a Mum and a Dad. Fact. But this word ‘normal’ frightens them. And (here’s my theory): in order to avoid that frightening word more and more people are resorting to this ugly word ‘normalcy’ – which enables them to dismiss ‘normal’ life and ‘normal’ behaviour as nothing more than a ‘tendency’ (perhaps, in their worldview, an unfortunate tendency).

I stumbled across the word ‘othering’ recently – and feeling a bit puzzled started doing some digging. It turns out that the University of California campus at Berkeley has something called ‘The Othering and Belonging Institute’ which it says is a ‘research hub for a fair and inclusive society’. That starts to tell me what this word ‘othering’ is getting at. Then I came across an English clergywoman named Reverend Dr Sally Nash appealing for contributions to a chapter on ‘Othering’ for a book she is writing. As always I turn to the massive Oxford English Dictionary data base to be enlightened on this (since they never miss anything going on in the world of language). It turns out that starting back in the 1930s philosophers began using the old word ‘other’ as a verb. Originally ‘other’ goes back to Old English (well over a thousand years ago) and was used as a pronoun or noun to mean ‘one of two’ – there was this one and there was the other one. But this new use as a verb is bizarre – and loaded. From at least the 1980s the weirdly woke had picked up what was originally a technical/philosophical expression and started to use it to tell us how good they were. They never ‘othered’ anyone – and all of us horrible people who are not woke are always ‘othering’ people. In this usage ‘othering’ becomes a tribal word – a way of treating some people as members of your tribe and some as outsiders. That makes it a usage that is blind to normal human nature – where some people get on well with other people and just ‘click’ with them, but not with ‘others’. It becomes (in the world of woke) a horrible, immoral behaviour, not to treat everyone exactly the same. It’s a confusion between respecting every human being as being ‘made in the image of God’ (as us ancient Christians like to say) and how groups of people just happen to get on.

Are the woke warriors now terminally confused about how to properly use the English language?