the "new normal"

[Ben Zimmer]

The earliest example I can find in the medical literature is from
1978, referring to patients who have suffered a heart attack.

---
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/752666
"Cutting Back After a Heart Attack: An Overview." _Health Education
Monographs_ 02/1978; 6(3):295-311.
p. 299: "The stages of cutting back are 'immobilization,'
'resumption,' and 'new normal.'"
p. 304: "New Normal: Adjusting to a New Identity" (section heading)
p. 306: "Negative standards of comparison set a worse peril against
the new normal. People who feel they came close to death are glad to
be alive at all; and comfort can be derived from comparing one's own
lot with that of another whose fate is even more unfavorable."
---

The article also uses the less elliptical "new normal stage" and "new
normal state."

--bgz

On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 11:53 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>
> I was wondering if the first use of this compound or phrase can be
> determined.  There's no entry for "new normal" in the OED, and while
> it's partly transparent, the specific uses it currently has,
> presupposing a recalibration of the standard setting, would seem to
> demand an entry.  I first encountered it in the early years of the
> new century in connection with the community of those undergoing
> cancer treatment, and recognizing the permanent effects of both the
> disease and the treatment (particularly chemotherapy) on their
> default "settings", but since then I've seen quite a lot in
> connection with the economy and with families who recognize that in
> the face of external pressures, they have to adjust their
> baselines--usually (or always?) in a less favorable direction.  Most
> of the first few pages of the many many g-hits for "the new normal"
> involve changes resulting from the recession, but am I right in
> thinking that the use in the cancer recovery community (or maybe more
> generally among those adjusting to changes in their baseline
> resulting from disease and treatment) predated this use?
>
> (If there were an entry in the OED, it would slip in around subentry
> 5 of the noun entries for "normal".)

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