Is aromantic really such a good word?

[Holmbo]

I was thinking about the term and it seems to me it could easily be confused with "a romantic" in English. Wouldn't it be better to call it something like unromantic or deromantic? Have this ever been a problem for you? I've never said the English word out loud so I can't be sure.

[kaseythefairy]

I've never had this problem. I don't think I've ever talked about being aromantic without some kind of context that makes it obvious what I mean. I do see where it could be mistaken, but nothing that couldn't be corrected easily.

[Confirmed Bachelor]

I don't particularly like the word, for other reasons. But it wasn't my decision, so...

Also, I've never told anyone I'm aromantic and doubt I ever will unless the word is understood outside of community websites. I simply tell people I'm not interested in dating or relationships and it's because that's the way I'm wired. 

[Momo]

Etymologically, it makes sense. The a- prefix means 'without'. So 'aromantic' would be 'without romance', and asexual would be 'without sex'. There's more nuance to the actual definitions than that, but the basics make sense even if you've never heard the word before.

 

Asexual in particular is an overloaded word though, leading to some extra confusion (eg. especially asexual reproduction). People know the word from other contexts and try to apply what they already know about other usages to this new usage as applies to humans leading some awkward and downright silly questions (eg, do you split down the middle?).

 

There really isn't a good alternative other than coming up with a completely new word but that comes with it's own confusion around what the word actually means until lots of people start using it.

[techno]

Personally, I haven't had a problem with it. Usually I just say aro anyway!

 

Frankly, changing the word would cause more confusion.

[Star Girl]

The only problems I've had are from google... (I occasionally search to see if there's any new articles anyone has done and the results tend to come up as "a romantic" unfortunately quickly.)

[Dodecahedron314]

I'm with @Momo here, the word makes perfect sense, and it should be clear from context which spelling is meant. I've also noticed that people tend to pronounce it slightly differently between "aromantic" and "a romantic".

[Momo]

1 hour ago, Star Girl said:

The only problems I've had are from google...

 

My biggest problem is my phone which insists I'm just aromatic. 

[SamwiseLovesLife]

3 hours ago, Momo said:

 

My biggest problem is my phone which insists I'm just aromatic. 

Why not both?

[Momo]

43 minutes ago, SamwiseLovesLife said:

Why not both?

 

Well, sure, but normally if someone is talking to you about how aromatic you are it's usually a very good or very bad thing. 

[BionicPi]

21 hours ago, Momo said:

 

Well, sure, but normally if someone is talking to you about how aromatic you are it's usually a very good or very bad thing. 

VERY BAD

[DeltaAro]

“aromantic” has now been introduced (I wonder when this word was first used, maybe some fringe author used it way before it was popularized by the asexual community) and there's no way to change it.

 

But imho it's sub-optimal. Aside from the google/OCR "a romantic"-issue , it invokes (like “asexual”) images like this (stolen from TV Tropes):

 

Get. Off.

 

And while this may be the case sometimes, it's not universal. There is constantly the problem that the Greek prefix “a” is interpreted more strongly than what it really means, namely “without”.

[omitef]

what if instead of calling ourselves aromantic, we just threw green heart emoji cutouts at everyone /sarcasm

 

my objection to changing "aromantic" is i want my arrow puns