Engineer: The link road to Naugaon is motorable — a jeep goes up it on every dry day of the year. Pradhan: It is not motorable — a loaded pick-up cannot use it in July and August, and for four months together the village can get nothing carried in. Neither of the two disputes what a jeep can do on that road, what a loaded pick-up can do, or what the road becomes in July and August. Which of the following best describes their exchange?

Send a third engineer up the road and he will confirm both men: the jeep does pass in dry weather and the loaded pick-up does not pass in the rains. The whole of the difference lies in whether 'motorable' means passable by some vehicle in the best season or passable by a working vehicle all year, so what looks like a dispute about the road is a dispute about a word. Nobody is misinformed, since neither denies a single fact the other states. The pradhan proposes nothing and asks for nothing; he asserts a description. And both are arguing from what they know of the road, not from hearsay.