"Norman" wrote :

In this increasingly litigious world it actually does matter. The legal
profession is very good at playing with words and manipulating them to
suit
their own ends. If the word "normal" is used to describe the "average"
value
then it is easy for a barrister to argue that anything that differs from
the
average is "not normal" and hence is "abnormal". If it is abnormal he
would
then argue that it is not a value that could reasonably have been
anticipated
by an individual. That is utter tripe, of course, but it is the sort of
argument that I come across very frequently.

My desk dictionary gives 9 meanings for "normal", but it
also gives 16 for "average", 7 for "mean", 8 for "median" and
9 for "mode". So you're stuffed whichever one you use! All
the more reason, then, to apply common sense, which effectively
means accepting that words have different meanings; so in a legal
environment that requires you to define your terms ... which I am
sure you do, Norman.

Philip