Why don't disorders have COOL names?

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I'm loving the responses!! !

Totally agree the soft 'g' sounds like the name of a laxative product.

In the US it sounds like "Assberger" However, because we all love hamburgers we automatically spell anything that sounds like "berger" as "burger" instead, even though we don't pronounce burger with a "u" sound in it. American English is second only to the British for completely fouling up the pronunciation of any word we see (a-Loo-min-um/Al-yew-mini-um???)

Maybe we should start a vote to pick the best name for us.

When the DSM 5 comes out "Asperger's" won't be the name of the disorder, but will likely be used only as a modifier of "autism".

I don't think that people will generally say "ass burgers" or "ass purgers" anymore, although brain scientists may continue to refer to "Asperger's autism" or "Kanner's autism".

Unofficial names for disorders are surprisingly tenacious, though. Most people who've been exposed to Asperger syndrome whether in their personal life or through the media, aren't even aware of what the DSM is.

We should find a name we like and start using it. Once it is used by many thousands of people it will be recognized.

Something like 'Asp-X'? Make it sound like a games console, or a programming language?

I refuse to keep running away from things, I guess. I've noted how the names people in various groups call themselves keep changing over time. While I'd agree to a change if the meaning of the word became associated with nothing but pure ugliness, I don't like giving in to ignorance and nastiness by abandoning the term just because someone can make fun of the sound of the sylables. People can make fun of somebody's personal name, too. But that's not a reason to change your name.

True, I pronounce the "p" instead of the "b" as much as I can. But I also go with the hard "g". So, for me, it's "ASP-urg-ers". That's my one little nod to the need to make it lend itself less to the joking. But I'm not going to go to extra special effort to try to find a new name that nobody can goof around with to make me feel bad. Besides, we can't even all agree on a symbol anyway. Remember that thread? We're just not all going to think alike. I respect what others are saying, but I think there are many ways to modify the pronunciation, and that's a thing that's already happening, and that's enough for me. We can say ""ASP-urg-ers", "AHS-pearj-ers", or whatever, and that's fine.

Think having a cool name will save us? Consider how straight people said gays "ruined a perfectly good word" and then, because it kept being used, eventually started going around saying anything stupid, distasteful, or otherwise socially unacceptable is "so gay". "ret*d" just means "slow", but now both words are insults. "Dumb" means without speech, but now it's commonly used to mean "stupid". These days, does anyone really want to refer to someone as a "negro", even though it's the corruption of that word that's the slur, not the original term itself? (Why that term got used in the first place, by the way, is another matter, though, with an ugly history of its own. So, maybe that's not the best example.) Even "Afro-American" sounds enough out-of-date to make you look silly, and that was a self-chosen term by at least some members of that community during a certain era. Whether we choose the term or not, we can still find ourselves unhappy with the result, once NTs get their hands on it. I say, let's make a stand instead of ducking the whole thing.

I have Asperger's. I'm an Aspie. If someone decides it's funny to warp that into something else, that says more about them than about me.

I recommend everyone should learn the correct pronunciation of Asperger's name. It really does not sound anything at all like "Ass Burgers". It actually sounds like "Ah spare gare" at least I think that is what it sounds like. I think the name is German and it actually sounds better when pronounced correctly.

I guess I don't know of any other name to give disorders to make them sound better. I've got no ideas for better names for Asperger's, unfortunately. We might sound a bit arrogant to say, "It's not a disorder, just an advanced evolutionary stage of the human brain that appeared in the body of primitive humans, so the brain is too advanced to properly communicate with the 'Primitives' or NT and in some cases, having an advanced brain in the primitive human body makes the brain incompatible with the primitive body because the body itself isn't evolved enough."

Autism works for me, that is what aspergers is anyways so why not? I mean sure some idiots think that if you have autism you must be mentally ret*d....but you cannot really get 'ass burgers' or anything else embarrassing out of it.

I think neuropsych disorders DO have cool names, for the most part. I love all of the acronyms involved, as well as memorizing both the generic and brand names for common psychiatric medications. How is it NOT cool to say something like, "The patient's presentation exhibited signs of bipolar-I psychotic mania, with predominantly euphoric mood and mood-congruent delusions, and a euthymic mood was obtained after treatment with lithium carbonate and quetiapine"?!

If they did have cool names, even more people would try to pretend they had them to be more "hip". Like people who pretend to have bipolar disorder.

Does your urine smell funny, too?!
I thought I was the only one!

Dr. Asperger was Austrian, so how is it said in Austrian?

Totally agree! I like the U.K. pronunciation better. I use it even though I live in Canada (Where the U.S. pronunciation is traditionally used).

Aspie is cool too...

I like the word "spectrum"

Sinclair zx spectrum 16k/48k/128k

At least it's not a right mouthful to say like some conditions. A friends son has something called 18q- deletion syndrome. The proper name is Chromosome 18q Distal Deletion Syndrome.

There are worse things in the world than sandwiches made of the ground up meat of donkies (thats what an 'assburger' would be-wouldnt it?).

But many horrible diseases have quite beautiful names, such as: salmonella, and melanoma.

Poor Hans, having his name mocked by people 30 years after his death and thousands of miles away.