SekhmetDreaming has asked this question of the Featured_Grownups gang for this first topic for the month of June, 2008.  She said,

I may not be able to play this game by those rules.  What I think is normal is determined and defined by the word's actual meaning.  I don't take my ideas about what is normal from the comfortable headspace inhabited by your average American.  I am not the normal kind of person who thinks that normal means healthy or acceptable or good.  I derive my information on normality from scientific data and statistical studies.

I have never been highly normal, and not since early childhood have I desired to be normal.  Normal people are not particularly interesting to me.  Normal people are not particularly anything, really.  They're just normal, average, unexceptional and largely theoretical entities, since almost everyone falls outside the norms in some way.

A person with a normal vocabulary might be able, with some difficulty, to work the New York Times Crossword Puzzle, except on Saturday, when it's hard.  A person of normal reading skills and mathematical ability might be able to decipher and complete U.S. Internal Revenue forms, but would probably prefer to leave it to an accountant or tax preparer, rather than make the effort.  Tax forms are well-known to be challenging for normal Americans.

A normal person, if lost in a forest, will tend to walk in circles unless he or she has been taught to move downhill to the nearest watercourse and follow it to a road or some habitation.  We tend to walk in circles because only very abnormal people have two legs of equal length.  The variance between the lengths of my legs is abnormally great, so I walk in extraordinarily small circles.  However, I don't get lost in the woods.

Normal people are fearful, superstitious, prejudiced, misinformed, ignorant, shallow, and self-satisfied.  Of course, it is possible to carry any or all of those traits to extremes that are beyond the norm.  Transcend any or all of them completely, and you will have become abnormal.  Anger is a normal emotion, and violence is a normal response to anger.  Unconditional love is so rare that many normal people do not believe it is possible.

Drug abuse and addiction are normal in the United States of America.  A normal American is a scofflaw in the areas of traffic violations, tax cheating, and petty theft, when he or she believes there is a reasonable chance of getting away with it.  Reaching back a bit in time, a normal person is more likely to "solve" a Rubik's Cube puzzle by taking it apart or peeling off and rearranging the colored stickers, than in the prescribed manner.

Normal people have great untapped reserves of strength and endurance, and capabilities that they do not know they possess.  Only rare individuals challenge themselves and push their capacity to the limits.  Congenital defects, accidental injuries, and extreme circumstances can force abnormal individuals to develop abilities that normal people consider superhuman.

A normal person is neither tall enough to reach the top shelf of my kitchen cabinet, nor small enough to reach the back of the bottom shelf beside my stove.  I'm way too normal in both those ways.  A normal person can walk more than 40 feet without having to stop and catch her breath.  She can run without falling on her face, and can do a healthy cardiovascular workout routine without collapsing from lack of oxygen.  I could use some more normality in those areas.

It might be too late to rehabilitate, "special," and give it back the meaning it used to have.  It was probably too late about the time when it started being used as a noun, and not just as an adjective.  As long as we had only special editions, special trains, and the like, then "special" was synonymous with individual, particular, and specific. 

Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity wasn't called "special" because it wore ribbons, won medals, or was cuter than General Relativity.  It is special because it is narrow in scope, applicable to only specific, restricted conditions.  The "special circumstances" you might encounter in a courtroom are nothing to be proud of or pleased about, either.  They tend to result in harsher sentences.

Usages such as daily specials and the Orange Blossom Special muddied those semantic waters.  After having been cheapened through association with discount prices, "special" took on a specious prestige from usage in Special Forces, Crown Royal Special Reserve, etc.  I think it was that cachet that led to its ultimate downfall as the word became associated with excellence and privilege, and then was used euphemistically in place of, "oddball," "disabled," "defective," "dysfunctional," etc.

It is pointless to regret a language's natural evolution.  Only dead languages don't change.  Euphemism is a different matter entirely.  It often is the force driving some of the most egregious changes in popular usage, and it often has some unfortunate unforeseen consequences.  In yesterday's discussion, loveandpolitics pointed out that euphemisms that replace offensive words will then become offensive themselves.

Trying to improve shit's image by changing its name to sugar is more likely to make people hate sugar than it is to make them love shit.  I advocate unequivocal speech and forthright communication.  If you don't know the precise word you want, but you can approximate it, you can zero in on it using a dictionary or thesaurus, or by calling a reference librarian if you don't have anyone like my guys in your household to supply le mot juste.

If you know exactly what you want to say but you cannot bring yourself to say it, you're in trouble.  If the thing you want to express or discuss involves body parts or bodily functions or just about anything that people can be uncomfortable discussing, you can skirt around a lot of the discomfort without distorting the message by using anatomical or medical terms or professional jargon. Sometimes it is preferable to send people scurrying to their dictionaries than to have them suppressing the gag reflex, or failing to suppress it.   ...and, sometimes the most impactful word is the one that best conveys the thought.

If your reticence arises from your thought's being offensive or taboo in itself, and you are worried about what people will think of you, then your trouble isn't semantic or linguistic, it is psychological.  In that case, coming right out with it can be liberating, enlightening, and therapeutic.  Try it.  It can be fun.  It might become a habit.