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[432a] if we take away or add or transpose any letter, it is not true that the name is written, but written incorrectly; it is not written at all, but immediately becomes a different word, if any such thing happens to it.

Socrates
Perhaps we are not considering the matter in the right way.

Cratylus
Why not?

Socrates
It may be that what you say would be true of those things which must necessarily consist of a certain number or cease to exist at all, as ten, for instance, or any number you like,


Plato. Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 12 translated by Harold N. Fowler. Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1921.

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  • Commentary references to this page (1):
    • Sir Richard C. Jebb, Commentary on Sophocles: Antigone, 71
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  • Cross-references in notes to this page (1):
    • William Watson Goodwin, Syntax of the Moods and Tenses of the Greek Verb, Chapter IV
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