"A return to normalcy" (i.e. a return to the way of life before World War I) was United States presidential candidate Warren G. Harding’s campaign promise in the election of 1920. Although detractors believed that the word was a neologism as well as a malapropism coined by Harding (as opposed to the more accepted term normality), there was contemporary discussion and evidence found that normalcy had been listed in dictionaries as far back as 1857.[1][2]
See also
References
- ^ "normalcy", Answers.com.
- ^ The Mavens' Word of the Day: normalcy, June 25, 1999, randomhouse.com.
External links
- "Normalcy", The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, 3rd ed., edited by E. D. Hirsch, Jr., et al. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. ISBN 0618226478.
- "A Time for Normalcy" by Evan Jenkins, Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2002.