#aspiedar

[overexplainingautistic]

My Autistic Opinion on the Word “Aspiedar”

My autistic professor for my Social Psych class who’s spent years working with autistics professionally responded positively that I picked him out as autistic, and noticed that I’m autistic too. I’m looking forward to the coming semester in his class. In this exchange, he used the word “aspiedar” which prompted my interest and analysis. Here’s my take on that word and if it’s one that makes sense to use or makes sense to avoid, and what could replace it if anything.

So For the sake of brevity, I’m going to presume people are familiar with the issues with functioning labels, and that the word Aspergers and its derivative aspie are both included in that.

So an initial assessment might be “Aspie? That’s a functioning label, and therefore not good to say.” however I think this is a fringe case where the otherwise good disuse of functioning labels is misapplied. 

For one, he’s older enough that he likely learned language before the time when this sort of thinking was solidified, and so regardless within him it is a legacy word grandfathered in to describe his own experience. Though that doesn’t say much about whether or not the specific word aspiedar should be freely used by younger autistics as well who otherwise forgo use of any functioning label type terms completely. 

So to answer that, is there an alternative word which could be used instead? All that comes to my mind are just “autdar/autidar/autistdar/autisticdar” some form of affixing autistic to the -dar suffix. With my american english phonology in mind, none of these work. the “td” sound can’t happen without it sounding like a word break and just generally discontinuous. So that takes out the first and third listed options. The fourth is eliminated by nature of also sounding like two words as well as by no longer being much of a shorthand by only being one syllable shorter than “autistic radar”.

This leaves us with the closest valid option of “autidar” which has the benefit of being the same syllable count as “aspiedar” and by sharing the same vowel sound linking both parts of the word. This vowel is also very close to the end of the diphthong found in the original “radar” and “gaydar” which is a benefit in listener recognition of the word’s meaning by sounding more alike to familiar examples. 

Unfortunately in the phonology of english as I know it, to pronounce a “t” sound in the middle of a word where its syllable is not the stressed syllable of the word, it becomes soft and sounds like a “d” instead. So if one is familiar with the word “audist” then that could cause confusion even though I doubt anyone would need use of a -dar word for that.

Regardless it doesn’t sound good, it doesn’t feel physically comfortable or easy to say. The word’s pronunciation isn’t quick to intuit because one needs to decide what syllable to stress, and if an otherwise destressed t should sound like a t anyway.

Aspiedar doesn’t have this problem, simply in terms of ease of use, I would say that it far surpasses any other variant enough to justify its use. It’s not unheard of in language and the natural evolution of words for outdated terms to remain in some few instances. Years down the line it could be a cool story to have when younger people ask “where does the aspie in aspiedar come from?” when all they know is the word autism. A subtle hint to remember the complex and imperfect past. 

That being said, I have no clue if I’ll end up actually using the word myself, but I have no problems if anyone else wants to. If anyone has their own thoughts, or thinks I missed any points, I encourage you to express them. I want to know other people’s thoughts on this, I only know what myself and one of my friends think. 

[proletariangothic]

oh god my aspiedar is centered on peter murphy for some??????????? reason??????????? i dont even know

Ooooooo! Tell me more!

[overexplainingautistic]

Re: Aspiedar

So people are suggesting spectrumeter as an alternate term. If it becomes common use and well recognized, then perhaps I’ll have no problems with it. As it is however, the term is unintuitive to hear. Out of this context where it’s literally being defined for me, I wouldn’t know what that means. I think it’s clever for sure, but its ease of use socially is lesser. It’s a term which requires a direct explanation each time someone hears it for the first time at least. It also lacks the queer parallel which the -dar ones have. Also I’m dyslexic, and spectrumeter is literally one letter off from an existing word. Pronunciation is also unclear. Does it sound identically to the word spectrometer? If not, does it sound kind of awkward, I can’t imagine a good pronunciation other than the word, which is ambiguous if shared.

Not being someone who’s actually planing to use any of these words, I don’t really care which becomes wide spread if any. Mostly I was just making a case for aspiedar as unexpectedly decent, and autidar as awkward to pronounce. 

[overexplainingautistic]

(Note, I’m not autistic, but I am neurodiverse): I think aspiedar makes a lot of sense as a term if we define “aspie” not as “high functioning autistic”, but as “an autistic person whose autistic traits maybe be ‘hidden’, overlooked, or ignored.” Similar to how “gaydar” and “transdar” don’t really apply to extremely flamboyant people, or trans people who pass almost-never.

I stand by my position that the term aspiedar works because it aesthetically sounds nicer and easier to produce than any autism based roots for the same word. 

I don’t think we need to specify any subcategory of autistic to have the term be applied to. I’m just taking “aspie-” to function as a placeholder for “autistic” 

Gaydar is something people cite when identifying gay people regardless of visibility or anything, and I think transdar is a more complicated thing that’s riskier to be vocal about, so not as important here. (I don’t feel like getting into the impacts of clocking a trans person)

For me, I’ve always used all of these types of words/ideas to mostly be applied to mean “That person looks like they’re like me in X way, I like them more than most strangers because of it.” more or less. Though I tend not to use singular words for that, mostly it’s not verbalized. When it is though, me and my friend somehow organically created some phrases to express those. “[person] is around [possessive] age.” means “is queer” to us. So if I see someone who strikes me as queer and I want to tell this friend, I can say “That person looks to be around our age.” Its a bit weird and random seeming without context of how the phrase came into being in our particular dynamic.