the smugness of language

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"Normal" is one of the best words I know when it comes to capturing the inexact -- and sometimes preposterous -- smugness of language. Dictionaries, psychologists and philosophers may fidget and fuss in a wild attempt to nail down some 'meaning' for "normal," but it simply doesn't work out very well.

People are insistently more interesting than the 'normal' or 'abnormal' that trips blithely off the tongue.

People are more interesting than the language and wisdom they rely on.

That's a useful piece of information, I'd say ... especially when talking to myself.
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