Abnormally speaking

The law of averages ensures that there’s no such thing as what we call ‘normalcy’

Now that the south-west monsoon is nearing its end there’ll be considerable discussion as to whether it’s been ‘normal’. While in some parts of the country there’s been a rain deficit, in other parts the rainfall has been much above the designated normal, with catastrophic consequences.

As environmentalists point an accusatory finger at climate change and the extreme weather events it brings in its wake, even those who don’t deny climate change might question the concept of what is called ‘normal’.

The normal is derived from the law of averages, which takes the highest and the lowest indices of what is being measured – be it the amount of rainfall, or seasonal temperature, or the height of people – and then arrives at a middle point between the two.

But how ‘normal’ is the norm? How often does it actually happen? And the answer is, not very. In fact, far from being normal, the ‘normal’ is often the abnormal.

To try to determine a normal monsoon is chasing a will o’ the wisp. Because see-sawing between the highest and lowest rainfall ever recorded, a normal monsoon would be as rare as a purple moon.

To get the ‘normal’ height of males belonging to a given ethnic community and fixing it at, say, 165cm, statistics would have to take into account those who are 170cm, the tallest, and those who are 160cm, the shortest, and come to a median between the two.

An individual who is exactly 165cm might turn out to be as rare, or abnormal, as a heads-or-tails coin landing on its edge.

Indeed, what we call ‘normalcy’ is, according to some linguists, itself an abnormality, the word having been coined by US President Warren G Harding in his slogan for his 1920 campaign, “Return to normalcy”.

Purists have claimed that the correct usage is normality, not normalcy, though Harding claimed that the word normalcy was first used way back in 1857.

Whatever the case, thanks to common usage, both normalcy and the concept behind it have become the normal abnormal, or the abnormal normal. Take your pick.

END OF ARTICLE