If I had not been poor, I might have heard the fifty-drachma course of the great Prodicus, which is a complete education in grammar and language -these are his own words- and then I should have been at once able to answer your question about the correctness of names. But, indeed, I have only heard the single - drachma course, and therefore, I do not know the truth about such matters.
(Plato: Cratylus)
"I respond to three questions," stated the augur. "For twenty terces I phrase the answer in clear and decisive language; for ten I use a professional cant, which occasionally admits of ambiguity; for five I speak a parable which you must interpret as you will; and for one terce I babble in an unknown tongue."
(Jack Vance: Guyal of Sfere)
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