4:36am January 18, 2012

Word origins

May be weird me pointing this out even though I don’t (can’t – it bites my brain to even look at it) use the word allistic (meaning “not autistic”). But people have been asking the origins of the word and I believe I actually remember where I first saw it. It may not be the exact origin but it’s a hell of a lot older than some people here are thinking.(*)

So the first place I saw allistic was as used by a (then) autistic teen named Ettina. Her blog is called Abnormal Diversity, but I don’t read it often so the first place I saw her use it was on a mailing list. I don’t know if she originated the word but she was the first person I saw popularizing it. The first post on her blog that used it seems to be from May 1, 2006. I believe I heard her use it earlier than that but have no hard evidence.

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(*) People in general online seem to think words and concepts are younger than they are. Some people think “ableism” originated on tumblr. Lots of people don’t know the origins of lots of things in autistic communities.

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