Ly. Good gracious, no; it would take us till midnight. No; you can look those out for yourself. Meanwhile, we had better take fresh ones, as we have only a quarter of an hour (by the way, never pronounce the 'h' in hour; that sounds dreadful). Then as to that outrage which you say I have committed upon you; if I were to speak of an outrage committed against you, that would be another thing.
Pur. Would it?
Ly. Yes; an outrage upon you must be committed upon you personally, in the shape of blows, interference with your liberty, or the like. An outrage against you is upon something that belongs to you; he who does an outrage upon your wife, child, friend, or slave, does it against you. This distinction, however, does not apply to inanimate things. An 'outrage against' is a legitimate phrase with them, as when Plato talks in the Symposium of an outrage against a proverb.
Pur. Ah, I see now.
Ly. Do you also see that the exchange of one for the other is a solecism?
Pur. Yes, I shall know that for the future.
Ly. And if a person were to use 'interchange' there instead of 'exchange,' what would you take him to mean?
Pur. Just the same.
Ly. Why, how can they be equivalent? Exchange is merely the substitution of one expression for another, the improper for the proper; whereas interchange involves a false statement[27].