No normal will be the new normal

From climate to events, there is really nothing normal about things these days. Which is nothing abnormal, considering the obsolescence of the word itself. Consumer goodie-two shoes Unilever deciding to axe this most ambiguous of words from its product catch lines has merely captured the zeitgeist — though some may see the move as merely as a gesture towards a more nuanced, less fair and lovely world. Of course, the current political incorrectness of the once-anodyne term ‘normal skin’ seen on lotions, creams and other cosmetics is manifest. So, Unilever’s decision is normal, sorry, timely.

But the decline in the efficacy and accuracy of that adjective spans several other spheres as well, including using it as a prefix for words such as intelligence, temperature, colour, student, couple or even working hours. In fact, the use of ‘normal’ has moved from signalling a peaceful, ordered existence of something to staid, standard, predictable and boring — as in, for instance, the ‘new boring’.

And such a conclusion is not unwarranted either considering normal itself is derived from the Latin ‘normalis’, that alludes to things made with a carpenter’s square and ‘normed’ to have perfectly aligned angles. No wonder no one really wants to be referred to as a normal, regular guy any more. Things will never get back to normal for normal.