Did President Warren G. Harding coin the term normalcy in his famous Return to Normalcy speech? Turns out the word normalcy was already in use before Harding made it famous. Its synonym, normality, is generally the preferred term. Harding is also credited with — or blamed for — bringing the term hospitalization into the common vernacular. In his book Presidential Voices: Speaking Styles from George Washington to George W. Bush, Allan Metcalf points out that U.S. presidents have contributed or popularized quite a few neologisms to the English language. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Harding’s Normalcy?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, this is Tyler from Fort Worth.
Hi, Tyler. How are you doing?
Hi, Tyler.
I’m doing all right. How are you guys doing?
All right. What’s going on in Fort Worth?
Well, I was wondering, when I was in high school, I had a professor in a class that I took that told us that the word normalcy was created by a president. I think it was Harding is what he said. When he misread that in a speech, misread the word normalcy or normality in a speech, I was wondering if that was true. And if so, what other words might have been created by presidents?
We can help you with that.
Sure, yeah, absolutely can help you with that.
It’s almost right. It’s not quite right. Normalcy actually existed before Harding used it in a speech, but he was definitely a popularizer of it. When he used this in a speech, it caused much comment. The commentariat had something to say. Of course, every president’s words are analyzed down to the last morpheme. And he definitely brought it into some kind of vogue. He got a lot of blowback for it, too.
He did, yeah.
And, Tyler, there was another word that he also got in a lot of trouble. You just said something similar, right? He was a bloviator.
Oh, that one, yeah.
He was a bloviator, and he used the word bloviating to mean, some people say it’s a mix of blow, as in blowhard, plus deviate, a person who is very long-winded and doesn’t know when to shut up.
And I don’t know anything about that.
Yeah.
Tyler, have you ever come across the word hospitalization?
Yes, I have.
Well, that’s another word that Harding got all kinds of blowback for using.
Oh, really?
Yes.
Really? I didn’t know that.
So blowback, we mean letters to the editors and editorials decrying his use of the English language and that sort of thing.
Yes, I think Mencken, in fact. Yeah.
We should say, we should turn this into just a little bit of a lesson because it’s bound to come up. Normalcy and normality mean the same thing. And generally, normality is the word that is preferred. And actually, normalcy has been in decline for decades and probably will eventually die out, except as some kind of relic.
Well, that’s too bad.
Yeah, it’s useful, but we don’t really need it. Normality occupies the same space. There’s no real semantic difference between them.
Sure.
I always felt smarter when I used normalcy, so.
Well, use it in good health then. Don’t be hospitalized.
Tyler, thank you so much.
I hope we helped.
Sure, you did.
Thank you very much.
All right, rock on, dude.
All right, have a good one.
Take care, bye.
Thank you.
