Starting to resent the label "Aspie?"

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Didn't read the whole thread but I don't like labeling myself anything.

I do

Okay, let me describe the difference between the why "Freudian" is pronounced from the German and "Asperger's" from the Anglicized form. It is about where the term originated and how it spread. I will also describe why someone in a major US city might often hear the incorrect pronounciation.

Both Freud and Asperger worked out of localities where the Germanic pronunciation was the norm. Both persons had their names, through the terms, "Freudian" and "Asperger's" acquired into the English language. However, only the second of those terms was acquired with fully anglicized pronuciation.

First, there are different uses of the word "anglicized." Just the fact that a word is acquired by the English language means that word has been anglicized to that degree of being acquired. However, "anglicizing" a word can affect its form, idiom, style, or character, as well as being acquired into the English language. So I am not arguing that "freudian" was not anglicized and "Asperger's" was. Rather, I am saying that Freud's work grew out of Vienna and became popular from its use in a Germanic context. However, it was different for Hans Asperger, who, although, conducted his work within a Germanic context, only became popularily known after Lorna Wing in England brought him out of obscurity and into conversation, and so it was Lorna Wing rather than Hans that actually coined the term "Asperger's." So, there is confusion over multiple uses for the word "anglicized" being applied to new words with from Germanic origins. Only "Asperger's" was a term that grew out of an actual anglicized location and therefore had the added anglicization of acquiring a more anglicized pronunciation.

Second, besides there being different uses for the word "anglicized" there are also different kinds of "anglicized." England and America both acquire new words and bring them into the English language, however, they don't always do that in the same way or by the same pronunciation, words can be acquired one way in England and then change in character by the time they reach America, if they do at all. That is what happened here with "Asperger's." The term began in England and then was anglicized a second time into a slightly different kind of English that is spoken in America.

That is why "Asperger's" is often pronounced all over the world with a "jer's" and often in America with a "ger's." If you listen closely to the general American pronunciation of "Asperger's," more often than not, you hear a "burger's" instead of a "purger's" pronounced. This is because the American pronunciation probably gravitates to familiar sounds when acquiring a strange new word, and it could be argued that the word "burger's" is very familiar to Americans and might account for some of this trend.

So we are presently at that critical point in the etymology of the word "Asperger's" when we can still defend the term from being slowely shifted into "Ass-burger's," instead of the more flattering "Aspurr-jer's." The word is only just now entering the general population as a popular word, how we choose to pronounce our condition or allow our condition to be spoken of to us will have a large impact on how the pronunciation develops as a general term. In other words, besides how the word was pronounced in the past, it might be just as important how we choose to pronoune it in the future. Regardless of an argument about word origins and past pronunciations, considering the word "Asperger's" is relatively new, it will be more a matter of how people will choose to pronounce "Asperger's" in the future as the word goes through the process of being acquired into common usage.

I want a pet Aspie.
I'd love it and play with it and take care of it.

I've never thought much of the label; usually I don't tell people that I'm an ''aspie'' or have AS. I just figured it was a label for a condition to put us into a group. If someone asks me why I get extra time on tests, I'll just tell them that I '' have a condition that slows down my thought process, but that's the only difference between you and me.''

Yes I am beginning to resent the term for many reasons. For one thing Aspie is getting too much negative media attention. But also as a few people begin to know that I am an Aspie they start using it to define me. Like parents of autistic children suddenly will not listen to me because they have the preconceived idea that all autistics are dumbasses and don't have a clue what is going on around them. Wrong! Just because your autistic child is a oblivious doesn't mean I am.

Also I dislike much of the Aspergers culture where others I know with ASD let it define them. Okay Aspergers is a part of me. Just like I also have brown eyes and have asthma and flatfoot. But I do not let any of those things define who I am as an individual, so why should Aspergers be any different. I was just a funny, weirdo the first 35 years of my life. I had friends and a life during those 35 years so why should who I am as a human being change in the past 3 years since I got a diagnosis? Does anyone else feel this way? I don't like others using autism as a label for me and I dislike it being expected now that ALL my friends must be autistic. And I dislike those that think my whole life should encompass autism. Personally I get sick of discussing it because I have a lot more going on in my life than being a damn Aspie. I'm kinda sick of the whole thing as you can tell.

Question: Is Ass-purger so much better than Ass-burger?! Ass-purger kind of sounds like you're talking about someone using the bathroom, if you ask me! Anyway, if you use the "g" sound and produce a "p", you get a much more innocuous word than if you use the "j" and the "p".

It may not be that Americans *are* using a "b" anyway- the two words sound almost identical- probably because the "b" would be somewhat devoiced next to the s, and the voice onset time following the "p" would be shorter because of "p"s position in the syllable- so the two sounds are almost identical in this position. Maybe you're hearing "burger" because that sound is familiar to *your* ear, not because Americans are pronouncing it that way. Your perceptual system is designed to choose the most likely possibility when the sound is ambiguous- that's why we can still understand degraded speech, or speech in a loud environment. It's much more likely that you're hearing it incorrectly than that people are actually pronouncing it incorrectly, especially if they are aware of its spelling (which I would argue is the case- it's not yet well known enough for average Joe to be hearing it around him and reproducing it without seeing it written). It does sound that way, but it doesn't mean people are saying it that way. We should get a native Spanish speaker to listen and render judgment- voice onset times for "p" are much shorter than they are in English, so their "p" and "b" sound often nearly identical to naive English-speaking ears. They could probably differentiate these two sounds. Or we could just record it and analyze it acoustically. I would do this to my own production, but I'm prejudiced, plus I don't have a high quality audio recorder yet. I have to get one soon anyway, so maybe I'll try this with someone else's pronunciation. I have a computer program I can use to measure the voice onset time.

Edit: I just looked it up: after an [s], /p/, and /b/ are neutralized, because /b/ is DEVOICED to produce a [p]. So it must be your perceptual system which is deciding that it is a [b] which is produced, since there is no acoustic difference between a /p/ and a /b/ in this position- unless someone deliberately alters their pronunciation, separating the syllables and producing a [b], they will actually be saying [p].

I don't resent the label of 'aspie'.
The only thing i don't like about the label itself is that it sounds kiddy/corny/stupid.

(If specificly asked) I always say 'Aspergers Syndrome'.

Good point! Since it could be the case that "b" sounds just like "p" in the context of "Asperger's," we might be better off surveying people who use the term as to what they intend to and/or think they are pronouncing when they speak the word "Asperger's."

Also, with "Asperger's" the "s" could be pronounced with a more "z" sound (more "as" than "ass"), then you would have something like "azper-jerz" or "azpur-jerz."

Both before and after I discovered the term "aspie" to be in widespread use, I've used "aspergerite".

I've found that also people who are the polar opposite are scary when they work in the DD field. The people who are utterly insistent on using person-first language and every other one of the latest PC language, seem to be the most likely to be do-gooder types who are interested in mostly making sure they feel good about themselves for the work they do, rather than whether they're actually doing good work. And thus they are the least likely to be able to take correction, and some of the most likely to be covertly manipulative of clients. (This is from the point of view of a client I'm speaking here. I've never worked in the field, but I have pretty good staff-radar from having been subject to all kinds of staff.)

The ones who are the best are the ones who are respectful in their deeds, and when using words they might not always use the "right" language but you can tell what they mean so it doesn't matter.

I can see that happening. I guess it just depends on the person then.

On second thought, maybe I prefer "AS" rather than "Asperger's." Or maybe I should coin a new term for AS, like "Hans" in honor of Hans Asperger's first name.

Me to a new person: "I have Hans!"
New person to me: "Yes, I have hands too. I am also grateful."
Me to self: "Oh brother, .. I better just focus on my next trip to Frans?"


Just a thought. A psychologist is a very personal thing. If you don't choose one that is really right for you then you can get left with a relationship where things might not feel right regardless of efforts made by both parties.

I think it's cute.

[quote]I'm Aspergian; I practically think of it as my nationality now (crazy as that may sound) [unquote]

good idea!

If NT is neuro-typical, or neurologically typical, then the opposite of that would be Neuro: (choose your favourite?) abnormal, anomalous, atypical, deviant, deviating, different, errant, freakish, irregular, mental*, nonstandard, odd, peculiar, psycho*, strange, unconventional, unrepresentative, untypical, unusual, weird. I rather fancy being a NI, but that might just be the python fan in me. Aspie is a touch cutesie really, perhaps detracting from the serious aspects of the subject. It adds to that whole "happy moron" persona, which is one of the ways NTs perceive anyone with mental "aberrance". (As opposed to "shouting hobo" or "stab-happy grinning lunatic"). It does however have a nice term of affection ring to it. ("whos my ickle aspie? yoo are yes yooo are.") As for political correctness.. shove it. The whole concept of PC drags everything into a sort of farce. You're a binman.. you aren't a "rubbish collection operative." Its NOT James Bond, its emptying bins, get over yourself. You're not "hearing impaired", you are deaf. You can't hear. Hearing impaired sounds like you just need to take the crayola out of your eardrum that you stuck in there when you were 6. you're a "homemaker" ? NO.. you're a housewife/husband. Unless you actually ARE a builder then you're not a home maker. To my mind, almost all PC terms sound infintely more insulting than the original words they replace, and infintely patronising. I'll be buggered if I'm going to be a "person with aspergers." Sounds like an embarrasing STD. "Why are you itching your crotch?" " I caught a dose of aspergers." What I am is someone who has various idiosyncracies which roughly fit under an umbrella label named after some guy in a labcoat in post-war germany who seems to have failed to actually find anyone who fits his requirements until the mid-eighties. "with aspergers" sounds like you could have it removed with lasers. Might leave a cool scar but otherwise no thankyou. My partner (also an aspie) says shes aspergic. Im rather fond of saying "im a spacker." (Spacker is the diminutive insulting form of spastic, a term widely used in the late seventies and early eighties, originally for sufferers of cerebral palsy, but subsumed into schoolyard slang as a generic term for anyone disabled.) Its a little like "taking it back." heheh.

As for the pronunciation.. well.. I live in a country that was invaded by the Normans in 1066. They went around renaming everything in french, and as one, the public started pronouncing the names any way they felt like. Belvoir castle becomes beaver castle. Hard G, soft G, its all a matter of accent. Ill take the tolkien-esque stance on it. When mocked for his incorrect usage of the pluralisation of the term dwarf, he declared "i wrote the dictionary sonny, ill say it however i bloody well like." (paraphrasing there). I'm using the word as an english term to cover a syndrome, so I'll say it in english. If i were talking to Dr Asperger, I would do him the courtesy of saying it how he liked. People who live in a different county or even a different town will say it differently, so it seems a bit futile to get fussy about it. Internationally speaking, if we cant agree on whether its a tap or a faucet or a nappie or a diaper, why worry about a hard G? Whats a harsh consonant between "friends." ? Until there actually IS a defined and seperate Assburger Syndrome, its unlikely to cause confusion.

Aspergic sounds like some kind of food intolerance. Spacker is even worse. It sounds like someone who masturbates in public.

So far none of the new terms are better than the old term. I really don't like using Aspie outside of the Aspie community as it sounds diminutive. I really prefer to avoid the terms and labeling myself because all the possible terms bring up negative connotations when mentioned to an NT.