Alec Ramsdell wrote:
>
> Marta Russell wrote:
>
> > I'm not sure about Harding (do you have a source)
>
> One of Harding's slogans called for a "Return to
> Normalcy"--he coined the word. From Harding's
> Inaugural Address, 3/4/21:
>
OED under Normal,
Hence 'normalcy chiefly U.S. =NORMALITY; 'normalist
1857 Davies & Peck _Math Dict._ 386 If we denote the coordinates of the point of contact, and normalcy, by x" and y".
1893 _Nation_ 30 July 47/1 Believers ...in the mathematical normalcy of the female mind.
1920 W.G. Harding in F.L. Allen _Only Yesterday_ (1931) ii. 41 America's present need is not heroics but healing; not nostrums but normalcy; not revolution but restoration
1929 G.N. Clark in _S.P.E. Tract_ xxxiii. 417 "If . . .'normalcy' is ever to become an accepted word it will presumably be because the late President Harding did not know any better. =====
Harding may have coined it, not knowing it already existed, or might have known the mathematical usage and adopted it.
Carrol