Rise of the term autist

Post Reply New Topic

"Autist" has always sounded elitist to me.

I have not noticed any increased usage.

Terminology and its derivation can be interesting, no matter our personal preferences regarding the individual terms. This discussion got me curious about how well-recognized some of the terms are. This is what I found:


https://www.merriam-webster.com/
autistic^(noun)     autist     autie     aspie     aspergian


https://www.wikipedia.org/
autistic^(noun)     autist     autie ^†     aspie     aspergian
^† I freely admit that sometimes I am amused by some odd things. I am amused that "Autié" is also the surname of some famous French hairdressers.


Urban Dictionary
autistic^(noun)     autist     autie     aspie     aspergian

years ago I had a friend who struggled with schizophrenia . He often said he was not psychotic, that he was a psychotist. In his case, he meant he had perfected his life as psychotic and fully embraced his situation and his struggles, and was not going to hide or be ashamed of who he was, being psychotic was his "profession" and he was good at it. It was the first time I had met anybody who was open about neurodivergent struggles. I learned a lot from him, long before I learned of my own autism.

I vaguely remember reading something that said that--done properly--psychosis could be less of a problem than a neurosis. I'm impressed to hear someone really did manage it. (And, if he somehow finagled it into a paying "profession" than that would be awesome!)

Great, now being psychotic is considered a form of neurodivergence.

Have you considered that autism is not a mental illness, and that categorizing autism with severe mental illnesses is inaccurate and a misleading and potentially damaging way to present autism to the general public?

Well theres John Nash, he won a Nobel prize while suffering with schizophrenia. He was said to be psychotic about his career and thought he was hired by the government to break codes. He got a nobel prize for his economic model that he proposed.

Also way back people with psychosis used to become employed as mystics because they were thought to be able to communicate with the dead.

I dont see why you expect people to be ok with autism and not psychosis. Sounds a bit biased and hypocritical to me. Its hereditary and genetic, so it is a form of nurodivergance. I expect you have heard the scare stories about them being dangerous, but the I have seen the statistics on that and they don't really add up. You are obviously stigmatizing them.

You obviously lack reading comprehension.

I think we're in an area of terminology where opinions diverge.

In some places, psychosis appears to be considered to be neurodivergent. Other places are less clear on the point.

I don't like the terms "spectrumite" (reminds me of the word 'termite') "Aspergirl" (sounds like a superhero name like 'Elastagirl'), or "Aspergian". I have a habit of calling all people on the spectrum "Aspies", although most people think I'm just talking about those diagnosed with Asperger's.

Sigh.

My immediate first reaction was sort of favorable for "spectrumite". I'd not seen the term before but I thought it was pretty clear--even though it sort of sounds like something out of a comic book or a video game. I enjoy playing with BBCode so I could have fun with it: "spectrumite".

When I went to the Internet to see if I could find out anything about the term I learned that even though it was sometimes used to allude to the autism spectrum it was not in Merriam-Webster, Wikipedia or the Urban Dictionary and it really was something out of a comic book and a video game--and it also appeared in a completely different context.

After all of that, I think I now share your opinion on "specturmite".

P.S. "Aspergirl"... OK, I've only been learning about this stuff for about two years. Do you mean to tell me Aspie gals are not superheroes?!

No. It doesn't.

Don't tell me. I'm also old enough that I was taught the difference. Tell the reporters on the local news stations. (I hate it every time they do it.)

Yes it does. Grammatical rules are descriptive, not prescriptive. If the way a word or construct is used changes the way it is currently used and understood is correct even if at one point that usage might have been transgressive and viewed as incorrect.