Why did Arnold Schoenberg prefer the word pantonal to atonal?

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Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in a suit, seated at a piano and holding a conductor's baton, appears to be conducting music in a wood-paneled room. — Arnold Schoenberg Austrian-American composer Arnold Schoenberg was one of the most influential teachers of music composition of the 20th century. He also was known for his creation of new methods of musical composition involving atonality, namely serialism and the 12-tone row.

Arnold Schoenberg preferred the term pantonal to "atonal" because he believed the latter was a misleading description of his musical style.1

While the term "atonal" suggests a complete absence of tonality, Schoenberg’s approach did not necessarily reject all tonal relationships. Instead, he sought to describe a system in which all 12 pitches of the chromatic scale could be used freely and equally, rather than being restricted by the hierarchy of a single, traditional tonal center. By using "pantonal," he aimed to convey a sense of "all-tonality"—a musical language that encompasses all possible tonal combinations—rather than the negative implication of "atonality," which implies the total negation of tone.213