[13]
Obscurity may also be produced by the use of words which are more familiar
in certain districts than in others, or which are
of a technical character, such as the wind called
“Atabalus,”1 or a “sack-ship,” or in malo cosanum.
Such expressions should be avoided if we are pleading before a judge who is ignorant of their meaning,
or, if used, should be explained, as may have to be
done in the case of what are called homonyms. For
[p. 205]
example, the word taurus may be unintelligible unless we make it clear whether we are speaking of
a bull, or a mountain, or a constellation, or the name
of a man, or the root of a tree.2
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
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