I actually genuinely prefer when the SpaceX commentators accidentally say "norminal", precisely because "nominal" does NOT mean 'normal'. It's closer to the opposite.

If Alice was thinking of buying a car from Bob and I told her "the vehicle I bought from Bob works fine, nominally", she would rightly take that as a warning.

If my family member was in space and I heard on the nets "safety systems nominal", I'd be bricking it!

AFAICT it's only the space industry that gets this wrong.

[–] llamacoffee@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago (1 children)

Norminal is one of my favorite space-isms! I think nominal is just tradition at this point

[–] threelonmusketeers@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 months ago

Earliest known use: The one and only John Insprucker, 2017-07-05, Intelsat 35e Launch Webcast at T+4:08.