Does normality exist?

Efour

Efour

Efour

Caporegime
Joined
8 Sep 2005
Posts
30,487
Location
Norrbotten, Sweden.
Ok I've been arguing about this, something to do, and it irks me that people can hold such partisan views on it.

Now my trivial approach is to say.
It's normal for birds to fly, but not all birds can and those are in this example, are "abnormal" birds ?

Thing is, this tends to associate a lot of negative feeling.

Ok I am overweight. For a human male, I am abnormally fat (sad but true) now how is this not a true statement?
In the future when all humans are overweight does that not become the normality? We will all be "normal" it's the normal state of Humanity to be "chunky"

Don't dwell on the weight example, I know gd loves it :p.

Ok take sexuality, do I need to explain or is it obvious what I will type? Men are normally attracted to women and visa versa.

Am I using the word normal wrong or does the word normal just offend people?

Average and normality is there a absolute definition of normal or is it just utterly subjective ?

Discuss. I haven't lit any bongs yet, just bored.
 
Efour said:
Am I using the word normal wrong or does the word normal just offend people?
Click to expand...

I think it's helpful to look at definitions. And take an alternative word : 'usual'

normal
conforming to a standard; usual, typical, or expected.

Usual
habitually or typically occurring or done; customary.

Not a lot in that, although "conforming to a standard" is a little ominous sounding.

Then look at the antonyms, which apply to populations outside of the standard:

Abnormal
deviating from what is normal or usual, typically in a way that is undesirable or worrying.

Unusual
not habitually or commonly occurring or done.

And there, I think, is why using "normal" is not good practice. Because you're implying (or maybe outright saying) that those outside the norm are abnormal, which is a word that carries a negative meaning.
 
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With crisp sets you can, if you take care. It's less clear with fuzzy sets.

The proportion of flightless bird species is quite small, but there are a lot more chickens than would occur naturally (normally?) without human intervention (flightless birds tend to make easy targets). So does normally mean with or without human intervention, in this case?
 
I think 'normal' is like an average.

I don't think abnormal should have negative feelings about it. Most people are abnormal in some way. It's just words.

I'm disabled, so compared to the average person I'd be abnormal, or unusual, unique etc. We even used to have 'special' schools for disabled people.
 
Efour said:
Ok I've been arguing about this, something to do, and it irks me that people can hold such partisan views on it.

Now my trivial approach is to say.
It's normal for birds to fly, but not all birds can and those are in this example, are "abnormal" birds ?
Click to expand...

I think most native English speakers would say "birds which don't fly" rather than "abnormal birds" so whilst you're probably technically correct to say "abnormal" meaning "less common than normal" there's a better way of expressing it.
 
[FnG]magnolia said:
I think most native English speakers would say "birds which don't fly" rather than "abnormal birds" so whilst you're probably technically correct to say "abnormal" meaning "less common than normal" there's a better way of expressing it.
Click to expand...
Racist
 
All the answers can be found in the Bible. We are at enmity with God/authority/goodness, we struggle against the lusts of the flesh, our minds are slaves to sin.
 
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