ROMANCE c.1300, "story of a hero's adventures," also (early 14c.), "vernacular language of France" (as opposed to Latin), from O.Fr. romanz "verse narrative," originally an adverb, "in the vernacular language," from V.L. *romanice scribere "to write in a Romance language" (one developed from Latin instead of Frankish), from L. Romanicus "of or in
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Uh-huh. Like many other cultures - but unlike our own - the Greeks and Romans differentiated between practice and preference, and didn't necessarily tie the two together, definitely not exclusively. (Neither, interestingly enough, did the old Chinese, which is kind of a headfuck to think about, considering the intense homophobic culture of today. It's amazing how many undesirable elements of what we think of as "foreign" cultures actually came from us.) Though it seems that while they didn't have the word, they had somewhat of the concept - from literature, mostly, we know that they were definitely clear that there were some men who had a strong preference for the same sex - but again, it's a language thing. Labeling people as "men who prefer women" and "men who prefer men" is much less otherizing as labeling people "homosexuals" and (the mostly silent, normalized) "straight people / heterosexuals / normal ( ... )
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