Urning
n.— «Karl Ulrichs was a civil servant in the small city-state of Hanover…As early as 1862 he had coined the word “Urning” to describe a male sexually attracted to other males, which he believed derived from a kind of intersexuality in some brains. The English translation is “Uranian.” This term&mash;based on a myth in Plato’s “Sym posium” that referred to a god dess of men who love men—was picked up and used throughout Europe and England.» —“The love that dared to speak its name” by Leslie Feinberg Workers World (New York City) June 10, 2004. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
A young caller from the Hudson Valley of New York wonders about his grandmother’s use of stemwinder to praise a speech she thought was excellent. In the early 1800s, people used pocket watches that had to be wound with a tiny key. Once someone...
Amid court-ordered busing in the 1970s, a middle-school teacher tried to distract her nervous students on the first day of class with this strange assignment: find a monarch caterpillar. The result? A memorable lesson in the miracle of metamorphosis...