"Norms"

Articles

David Aurisano

"Norms"
May 9, 2003

One of my classes was graced just two weeks ago or so by the presence of the President of the Texas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers (NASW), who was talking about dealing with politicians in general, and specifically about how dealing with Texas politicians is different from dealing with politicians from anywhere else in the country. Naturally, as in any lecture on psychology, sociology or social work, the subject of “social norms” came up again and again.

As a Nick-at-Nite aficionado with a weak spot for the old eighties TV show Cheers, these constant references got me thinking about the nature of the word “Norm.” Let me preface this with an apology to readers of the venerable New York Times Magazine, as doubtless this will have the flavor of one of William Safire’s “On Language” columns. Fortunately though, I doubt he would take his column the same direction.

Flatly stated, the first thing that comes to mind for me when I hear the word “Norm” is the fat, somewhat friendly guy played by George Wendt, who stayed at the bar all day in Cheers. And he certainly is a more than somewhat social Norm. I think I read somewhere, on the Internet maybe, that the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), the probably million page dictionary that provides the standard for what words are or are not a part of the English language, added a new definition for the word “norm,” defining a “norm” as a person who does nothing but stays at a bar all day. But I’m not certain about this- maybe I dreamed it. Or, in one of my finer sleep deprived graduate student moments, hallucinated it.

I wasn’t about to write a column based on the uncertainty of my recollection, so I decided to look it up. Unfortunately, I couldn’t access the Internet version of the OED. It requires a pretty hefty, paid subscription, and I wasn’t about to spend my meager graduate student earnings on a subscription to look up a single definition. And I wasn’t exactly in the mood to make the long, arduous trek to the library (we’re talking Houston traffic) to dig through the entire “N” section of the paper version of the dictionary just to learn about Norm. So I went with some of the other online dictionaries.

The most common dictionary definitions for the word “norm” were as follows:

1. n. A rule, model or pattern. 2. n. Average. 3. “social” norm: in social sciences, the expected behavior within a society.

Look this up anywhere, and you’ll find these are pretty much the standard definitions. And no reference anywhere to Norm Peterson from Cheers. Let’s look at these definitions carefully. The first one, a rule, model or pattern, seems to fit the guy on Cheers. He’s become almost a pattern for the people who follow his example.

And then there’s the second definition, average. Was Norm average? He certainly was a pretty average guy. Well, at least I couldn’t find anything remarkable about him except for the fact that he never seemed to leave the bar, even after closing time. These definitions, if nothing else, show that “Norm” was at least a fitting name for the character, even if it was only short for “Norman.”

The third definition, of a “social norm,” was undoubtedly what the president of the NASW was talking about. I’m not sure about this because I was pondering the meaning of “Norm” and following his example, thinking about a nice, cold beer instead of paying attention (unless the Dean is reading this, in which case, Dean, I was paying full attention and taking notes, really). However, it was a social science program, and when we talk about “social norms” we’re most often talking about the third definition.

Although some of the definitions might explain why the character on Cheers was named “Norm,” they don’t do anything as far as explainingwhether, in the English language, it is proper to call someone who sits at the bar all day a “Norm.”

The dictionaries weren’t being a help (stupid dictionaries, what do they know anyway?), so I decided I’d have to look somewhere else for this information, like pop culture. It didn’t take me long to hit upon something: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, a perfect example. There was a Ferengi character in the show named Mron. What does that have to do with it? Well, I remember reading somewhere (And I’m sure I read it this time), that the name “Mron” is “Norm” spelled backwards, and the character in Star Trek was named that because he was originally planned to do nothing all day except sit at the bar. I don’t know if that’s what the character actually did, because I only watched the show when the girl I was crushing on at the time was in on of her Star Trek fits (which was most of the time, but convienently DS9 wasn’t on as much as Voyager), but the point remains that the producers of Star Trek decided they couldn’t name the character Norm because too many people would recognize him as the guy from Cheers.

If that many people can recognize someone who sits in a bar all day as a “Norm,” I think it’s about time society starts recognizing this too, regardless of what the dictionaries say.

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David Aurisano is a graduate student at the University of Houston. Email David: daurisano@hotmail.com

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