Page "False friend" Paragraph 18

Normal in French implies technical conformance ( to technical standards ), it means " It is as it's supposed to be ", while normal in English implies social conformance ( to social norms ).

This is why the now-archaic normal school ( from the French école normale ) is so confusing to present-day English speakers ; it was a place where people received standardized training in how to teach children, not an institution where social deviants learned how to behave normally.

The same divergence also presented a problem for the International Organization for Standardization ( Organisation internationale de normalisation ) at its founding in 1947 ; it settled on the short name ISO as a compromise between IOS and OIN.